AN: So this is my first Hunger Games Fanfic, and it's probably full of grammatical errors, but hopefully it's ok. Anyways, on with the story!
"Stop, Stop! Panem, may I present to you your Victors, Cato Selkirk and Clove Redpath from District 2!"
Cato removed his arms from where they were strangling my neck, and in return, I took my knife away from where it was pressed against his heart. We had won the Games, I was going back to District 2, and I wasn't dead. I looked at Cato who had a shocked expression on his face, it was almost comical, but I was sure that my expression mirrored his. I had always assumed that when I won the Games, not if, but when, I won I would feel confident and proud of myself for the achievement. But that's not the case. I want to cry in relief that they're finally over. As the Capitol anthem blared out from the speaker, I wondered how this had ended up happening.
The wolf muttations chased us to the Cornucopia. Lover boy didn't make it; he was ripped to shreds by the muttations before reaching the Golden Horn. His screams echoed through the cold night air, chilling me to the bones. Unfortunately Fire Girl made it to the Cornucopia. She was outnumbered by Cato and I, I had one of my two remaining knives aimed at her, and Cato still had his sword, and was ready to decapitate the bitch. However, she probably could've killed us with her arrows, if she had really tried. We stood in a sort of triangle for a while, knowing that if one of us made a move, the others would attack. But in the end, neither of us killed her; she slipped off the structure trying to shoot an arrow at one of us. The muttations tore her to shreds, and we spent all night listening to her screams. In the end, I couldn't take it anymore, I threw a knife at her, and all at once, the muttations disappeared. Then the announcement came: there was to be only one Victor. Cato and I didn't hesitate before attacking each other. But we were too evenly matched…
They whisked us off in a hovercraft, I don't remember much of what happened, as they then removed the trackers in our arms and knocked us both unconscious with some kind of drug so that when they got to the hospital, they could fix us up in peace. I had my rib that had been broken by Cato in our final battle fixed and a few other minor injuries were healed. Cato had a few sprains and bruises healed, but nothing was very serious.
Then I was taken back to my prep team. They gushed at how lucky I was to be alive and how the Games had been such a hit. Everybody had loved the whole star crossed lovers of District 12 thing, but thought that Cato and I made a cuter couple.
"What?" I choked
"Everybody simple loved you and Cato darling, and at the end, when you had to fight each other, it was simply heart breaking." gushed Orchid, one of my prep team
"But Cato and I, we're not a couple!" I told them
But my prep team either weren't listening or they didn't care, because they ignored me and continued gossiping. They honestly scared me, and I was Clove Redpath, the girl who wasn't scared of anything.
There was Orchid, who tried to look like the flower she was named after, with white hair, face, lips and outfits, the only splashes of colour were purple and yellow tips in her hair and the green dresses that she wore. There was also Mizar, who despite being a man, wore makeup, and I'm not talking about guyliner, but he was the most normal looking one, with a purple afro and gold eyes. Then, there was Eustacia. She was quite a sight, dyed turquoise skin, eyes with flower patterns in them, gold tattoos that writhed above her eyebrows and scary green eyelashes. I felt bad for them; they actually thought they looked good.
By the time I was ready to see my stylist, Auricula, all the hair had been ripped from my body, my face had been caked in makeup to hide any scratches that remained and fake nails had been glued on to hide the remnants of my broken, chewed off nails. I looked at myself. The prep team had done a good job of hiding my physical wounds, but I was more concerned about the psychological wounds, the ones that all the trauma in the arena had caused. I seemed, different, to the confident girl that had entered the arena. I still looked the same, but my eyes betrayed me. They showed the truth, all the horrors that I'd seen in the arena and the pain that I'd suffered. I hadn't noticed before, but every single Victor must have the same eyes. That was why Haymitch drank, why many were morphling addicts, they wanted to forget. I promised myself that I wasn't going to risk harming myself, just to forget, that I was going to find some method of healing that was healthy.
Auricula came into see me. She looked the same as ever, cold and unfriendly.
"I figured that you could wear this gold dress." she told me
I nod, what else can you do? The whole makeover process is so exhausting that by the time the stylist gets to you that you can't do anything but nod and agree with them. I'm dressed in a long, floor length gold coloured dress and high heels that I can't walk in. The dress is maybe a little too low cut for my taste, but I look nicer than usual, so I'm not complaining. My dark hair is curled, and then straightened, and then finally, it's decided that wavy hair looks the best.
I wobble down to where Cato, Brutus and our other mentor Eta are waiting. I expect that they'll just be talking about interview angles, but I'm met with Brutus looking worried and serious.
"What's going on?" I ask
"Take off those shoes Clove, so that you can actually walk." I do what he tells me and we follow Brutus down a series of hallways to a garden.
"What are we doing here?" asks Cato
"No cameras or listening devices. I have to tell you something, which could very possibly save your lives." Brutus tells us
We stay silent waiting for them to tell us more. I don't really know what's going on; but I had a bad feeling that it was something to do with what the prep team were talking about.
"Panem thinks that you two are a couple." Eta said
"What?" spluttered Cato
"That was my reaction too…" I mutter
"Somehow the Capitolites have come to believe that you two are in love. And if you go to the interview, and tell them the truth, they'll be crushed." Brutus explains
"So? Who gives a fuck about the feelings of those spoilt Capitolites?" Cato exclaims
I agree with him, although I'm slightly offended that he is totally against us being in love. I'm not that ugly, and I'm only a year younger.
"That's not the main problem, I wasn't finished!" huffs Brutus
"The thing is, if you don't keep up the charade, President Snow may kill everybody you care about. He can't touch you two at the moment, you're Victors, but in a decade or two, once everybody's forgotten Clove and Cato, the lovers from District 2, he'll get his revenge. Nobody outwits the Capitol and comes out unscathed." says Eta
"If that's going to happen anyways, then why do we have to pretend to be lovers?" I ask
"If you do, and you're convincing, there's a chance that you might live and your loved ones could be spared. Make everybody believe that you made a pact that if you two were the last ones standing, you would kill each other. Persuade everybody that you're madly in love, that you would rather kill each other than be separated." answers Brutus
Cato and I look at each other, hardly believing what we're hearing. How am I going to convince Panem that I'm in love with this boy? We became friends in the arena, but nothing more. I was never much of an actress, but I'm going to have to pull off this performance, it will decide whether I live or die.
After our rather morbid conversation, we walked back to outside where Caesar Flickerman's talk show was held. I put my shoes on again, steadying myself on Cato. We had decided that we were going to try as hard as possible to act in love, which would be hard as we had no feelings for each other. Thank Panem he was attractive, so kissing him might not be too repulsive. We stood nervously, waiting for our cue to enter. The theme song started and we heard applause, meaning that Caesar Flickerman had entered.
I heard our prep team being introduced, they must love the feeling of being on live television, especially Orchid, I'd often heard her go on about 'What a hottie Caesar is, and at his age as well!' Our prep team are all newbies to the Hunger Games, so I assume that this is their first time on live television.Then our escort, Aphrodite was introduced, she's been on the show before, so the audience will probably recognize her. My stylist Auricula, and Cato's stylist, Velorum, are introduced, but like Aphrodite, they have been through this before. Our mentors go on, and the audience goes wild for these old Victors. After he cracked a few jokes, we heard him introduce us.
We walked onstage, I wobbled in my shoes, and I had to grab on to Cato to avoid falling flat on my face. The audience seemed to like that, how did they even end up thinking that we loved each other though?
"Congratulations, how does it feel to win?" he asks us
"I can't believe that I'm alive, and that Cato won alongside me. Honestly Caesar, I couldn't have asked for more, when they announced that two people could win, I was overjoyed. It meant that I got to live in the nicest place in District 2, and my lover gets to live with me as well!" I answer
These words feel strange coming out of my mouth, yet the audience doesn't seem to notice. They lap it up, loving the words that are coming out of my mouth.
Caesar then turns to Cato.
"Now, before we begin watching your Games, I believe that there is a question everybody wants the answer to." he says
Cato smiles good-naturedly. "What question?"
"When did you two fall in love?" asks Caesar
"I don't know. I guess that Clove always stood out from everybody else. She's just so- I'm sorry I'm not good with words, I-I can't describe it, or how it happened, but somehow, I fell in love with the amazing beautiful, Clove Redpath."
The audience goes wild at his response, but I can see they want more, and that this won't be enough to convince the President that I love Cato. So I turn to face Cato, and despite the heels, I'm still a little shorter than him, so I loop my arms around his neck and hope that he knows what I'm doing. I see a flash of recognition in his eyes, and he leans down, and our lips meet.
This really makes the audience go insane, they cheer and clap and scream a combination of our names, Clato. We break apart after a minute or two, and when we go to sit down, I ignore the separate chair set for me, and I sit on Cato's lap.
Caesar laughs, joking that we can't keep our hands of each other. We smile and I giggle along politely, before Cato leans down and we kiss again.
We are interrupted by Caesar, who announces that it's time to watch a replay of the Games. I decide to watch very carefully, to see what could possibly make the audience think that we were in love. At the beginning, I don't see anything, and I'm starting to believe that the people from the Capitol just made up our relationship to add something more to the Games.
But then I see it, at the Feast, after Cato killed Thresh, I was lying on the ground, unconscious after Thresh hit me. Cato comes up to me, and holds me, begging me not to die. But no cannon fires and after a while, I wake up, my eyelashes fluttering, and I smile at him. The whole scene looks like something from a goddamn fairy tale, no wonder everybody thinks we're in love, if the people on the screen weren't me and Cato, I would've thought that they were in love.
I turn to Cato and kiss him again, just so the Capitol bubbleheads think that this is a special moment for us. Thank God Cato actually gets what I try to do, otherwise we'd look like awkward, bumbling idiots, and our families would be killed. Even though I truly detest my father, and my siblings have all grown up and gotten married and abandoned me, I don't want them to die.
When the replay is over we kiss again before walking offstage. My prep team scrub the makeup off my face and help me out of my dress, I then change as quickly as possible into my pyjamas and go straight to bed. I don't get much sleep that night. I toss and turn unable to sleep. And when I do finally fall asleep, I get nightmares that cause me to wake up again, drenched in sweat and shivering out of fright. After that, realize that I'm not going to get any sleep, and lie in my bed, hoping that time will pass quickly so that I can get the final interview and the crowning over and done with, and I can just leave the Capitol.
I'm the first at the breakfast table today, followed closely by Cato.
"Nightmares?" I ask him, seeing the bags under his eyes
"Yeah. I can't wait for this whole thing to end, I want to go back home." he replies
"That's what I was thinking." I tell him
We spend the rest of breakfast eating in silence; I'm not very hungry so I only eat a little before surrendering myself to the whims of my prep team. They change the fake nails and they slather makeup over my face. For the final interview, I'm dressed in a green dress with too high heels.
"Do I have to wear these shoes?" I ask Auricula
"Yes." she replies
"But I can't walk in them!" I repost
"Then you have an excuse to hold Cato's hand." she answers coldly
At first, I think that she's just being her usual, bitchy self. But then I see the knowing gleam in her eyes: she knows about me and Cato. I wonder if Brutus or Era told her, or if she just guessed herself, but either way she knows, and she's helping me pull off this charade.
I wobble to where we're supposed to meet, the same place where we met yesterday, just outside the entrance to Caesar's show.
"Good luck." says Brutus
I smile at my mentor before walking into the bright lights of the studio. I hold onto to Cato's hand, to stop myself from crashing to the ground and to make everybody think that we're in love.
We answer a series of questions about the Hunger Games and our 'love'. I can't answer honestly about the Games though, I only just got out of the arena a few days ago, I haven't processed it yet, and how am I supposed to answer questions about a week filled with near death experiences?
"How did you feel when the announcement came that after all, only one of you could survive?" asks Caesar
"Devastated. But Clove and I had decided, earlier on, before the Games had started, that if we were in the final two, that we would fight it out honestly. But I know that in the end, I wouldn't have been able to bring myself to kill her. I love her too much." replies Cato. I then turn and kiss him again, so that the audience is satisfied
"And when you were both declared Victors, we could all see the shocked looks on your faces, but how did you feel about being able to win the Games, alongside with Cato?" questions Caesar
"I was overjoyed, I was honestly so surprised, that we could both live, that we could spend the rest of our lives together." I answer
The audience seems to love this stupid, romantic mush that's just pouring out of my mouth.
The rest of the interview goes by fairly quickly, and after another hour of kissing Cato and answering questions, we leave to go get crowned by President Snow. Usually, they crown us after we watch the replay of the Games, but since there are two Victors this time, they want to do some kind of fancy and unnecessary ceremony.
They take us to some place, with another audience, and we sit in separate thrones, listening to the national anthem blare out of the speakers. President Snow enters, followed by a little girl holding a pillow with two crowns. He places one on Cato's head, then turns to do the same to me. When he places the crown on my head, he looks me in the eyes, and I feel very, very afraid. He looks furious and practically murderous and that's when I know, that President Snow isn't fooled, he realizes that me and Cato don't love each other, that this was all an act and that somebody is going to pay for it.