This is actually a request by Essence of Lily. I always did wonder about the whole Clove/Cato relationship, so here's my take on it! There's like an implied romantic relationship if you squint enough ;)
This was originally one long document, so I split it into 3 parts.
Also, it might help if you read my other sort of companion fic, "Macula Tamen Venia". There are events in there that are elaborated here!
...Holy cow, it's 12.32 a.m. Why does my muse ONLY work at night?
Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games. I am not a bloodthirsty citizen of the Capitol.
Ouch I have lost myself again
Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found,
Yeah I think that I might break
I've lost myself again and I feel unsafe
oo1
The first time they ever lay eyes on each other is their first day at training when they are ten.
Cato is used to being powerful, used to shoving all the other boys around, so he asserts his dominance the first day by barging through the line of ten year olds when the trainer walks off to get something. He scoffs when another boy pushes him back into place, instead towering ominously over the scrawny little runt.
The other boy backs down immediately, averting his blue eyes as Cato growls.
The only person that does not back down is the little girl by his side. She glares at Cato, eyes piercing as knives, and the both of them lock gazes with a stony glare that seems to say, Watch me, I'm going to be someone someday.
And then the trainer is sharply demanding that everyone please get back in line, so Cato crosses his arm and continues striding through the now silent crowd of kids. This is his show, he knows. It doesn't help bolster the other kids' spirits when the trainer mistakenly assigns him to the older group for training. It only underlines his dominance.
Training goes well. But the one thing Cato cannot forget is the only girl who is daring enough to engage him on his own terms.
oo2
The second time they meet each other, she almost kills him.
It is two weeks after their very first training, and Cato is just coming off from his stamina training with the seventeen and eighteen year olds. As he walks past the weapons room, wiping his face with a small towel, he hears a thunk thunk thunk and hastily backtracks.
The small girl is in the room, twirling a knife as she contemplates the targets that have three small knives embedded in them. Cato notes with amusement that the targets all have knives where the heart is supposed to be, and the knives are so far embedded that they are up to their hilt. "I think you're a couple inches off," he drawls as he walks into the room.
Like she did two weeks ago, she meets his gaze with a hard stare. "Says who?"
"Says me." He observes the targets thoughtfully.
"As if you can do better." Her voice is even, with a hint of a threat or a challenge.
"No, but I'm handy with a sword." Cato holds out his hand, and she grudgingly gives him the knife. "Your own?"
"My father's." Her voice is hard and stony, and Cato is left wondering what sort of family she's got. Clearly a better one than his, since his father has never bothered to give him anything.
He hands the knife back, and shrugs. "Good weapon for a little one like you."
He begins to walk away, but then hears something whizz past him and embed itself in the wall at most two inches from his head. Cato looks at the knife, which is still trembling from its sudden departure from its owner's hand, and then turns to look at the girl with the blank expression. "You miss?" he asks calmly.
"I never miss," she says with the coldest tone he's ever heard.
"I believe you." He walks over and holds out his hand. "I'm Cato."
She begrudgingly shakes his outstretched hand. "Clove."
oo3
They don't talk when they see each other in the hallways; they only nod to each other as they pass one another. Cato is popular in school, but he increasingly notices that Clove is never present when he is.
One day, when they are both in the weapons room, he asks her where she eats at lunch during school. She only shrugs and replies: "I don't like people."
"Because you'll throw knives at them?" He swings a sword and neatly slices off a dummy's arm.
"Because they make fun of me." Her voice is even, as it always is. She never varies her tone, never betrays what she is feeling. "They don't say it to my face, but I know they say it."
Cato is somewhat at a loss as to what to say, so he goes back to slicing up dummies- something he is fairly good at. "Hand me a knife," he eventually says grimly.
She gives him one, and he throws it as hard as he can at a dummy, impaling it right in the middle. Clove scoffs. "You missed," she says.
"I know." The eleven year old Cato shrugs. "Dad says I'm not as good as you in knife-throwing."
She contemplates this. "It's true." She says it so matter-of-factly.
"And you're not as good as me at hand-to-hand combat." To anyone else but them, it would seem disconcerting that two eleven year olds are creating conversation around weapons and self-defense tactics.
Clove nods, accepting this fact. "Again, true."
"So why don't we spend lunch practicing? You teach me, and I'll teach you."
Clove weighs the options in her mind, her face never betraying the hesitation she feels. "Deal," she says eventually. Then as an afterthought, she adds, "But you're getting your own knives. You won't touch mine."
oo4
"What are you still doing here?" Cato walks in to find more dummies on the floor, knife marks in all their hearts. "It's eight at night."
"You're still here, aren't you?" Clove's voice is flippant as she pivots and flings another knife at the dummy.
"Stamina training just ended for us. Clove, you were supposed to be home two hours ago."
"And you're supposed to be in the Games," she says flatly, "but clearly that didn't work out, did it?" Thunk. The knife drives home into the heart.
Cato scowls. "I thought we weren't bringing that up."
"Why not?" Clove turns to face him, hand on her hip while the other clutches a glinting sword. She shrugs. "Everyone's got something they're ashamed of."
He glares at her, and she glares right back. "I'm not ashamed," he snaps.
"Whatever, Cato." She goes back to throwing, her aim as accurate as it was when she was ten. "Leave me alone."
He hovers for only a moment, but then simply rolls his eyes. "Fine. Bye."
"Bye," Clove says simply as the door slams behind Cato.
Thunk. Another knife hits the mark and buries itself deep.
oo5
Cato is watching the door like a hawk when it opens and a battered Clove limps in. "Do not say anything," she says through clenched teeth when Cato strolls over, mouth open to make a sardonic remark. "I will bury a knife in you faster than you can say District 2."
He reaches over and jabs a bruise on her cheek; she slaps his hand away with a growl. "What happened to you?" he asks despite her warning. "Run into a pole?" He scoffs. "I always knew you were uncoordinated."
"Watch yourself," Clove snarls.
"Watch yourself," Cato retorts as he falls into step beside the visibly fuming girl. "Is your father-"
"I am warning you for the last time, do not say anything," Clove gets out through a clenched jaw. "Especially about my father."
Cato drops the act once they get past the double doors leading to their weapons room. "Why not?" he asks, looking at the finger shaped bruises on Clove's wrist.
She yanks her wrist away, eyes cold as the snow District 2 receives in winter. "No." Pulling away from Cato's gaze, she storms towards the weapons rack. "Let's get to work."
He catches the sword she fairly flings at him. "But-" he begins.
"No," she says emphatically. She glares at him, green eyes piercing like the knives she throws for a kill. And the glare says everything she doesn't- don't give me pity, don't talk to me, don't mention it, act like it never happened.
Cato's gaze drops away first, like it did that very first time he met her. If she doesn't want pity, he thinks, then it won't come from him at all.