For Amy (foxfaced by nightlock) for her birthday. I know, this is really late and I can't even remember when your birthday was but, yeah. I love you, you're amazing and this is a rubbish Clato, but here you go. :)
I don't own The Hunger Games.
an eternal moment
He runs. He runs as fast as he can, away from the mutts that have suddenly sprung up behind him. Their snarls are loud and vicious, and Cato doesn't scare easily, but he's terrified, absolutely terrified. He doesn't wait to see what they look like, see how fast they can run, if they can jump, because he knows that if he wastes a single second trying to evaluate them he's going to end up dead.
Quickly, he decides to run towards the Cornucopia. He learnt when he was chasing Everdeen that trees couldn't sustain his wait as he attempted to climb, but he's climbed the Cornucopia before to check for more supplies, and to laugh with Clove. He brushes the thought of Clove from his mind. He promised himself the night before he volunteered that he would never let feelings of any sort enter his mind and affect his judgment during the games, and he won't let them effect him, not now, not now he's so close to winning and there are only two tributes left, and he knows he's stronger than them, even if Everdeen got an eleven in training.
He spots them standing there, and he curses at them for being so stupid. She quickly fires an arrow and he's thankful for the body armour that was given to him as the arrow bounces off of his armour. He carries on running, the sweat pouring down his face and he hears from the sound of footsteps that Everdeen is running after him, and he snarls. He's turned feral, and he's aware of it, but he can't bring himself to care.
He reaches the golden horn and he climbs the Cornucopia, his hands slick with sweat as he almost tumbles down, but he reaches it and lies on the top, panting, and wishing for some water. He laughs at the pitiful move as the girl makes as if to go back for her district partner, her 'lover'. He can see right through them—they're obviously putting on a show. It's the only way they could ever get back home. He thinks to them that he could show them what real love is, and then he mentally hits himself. He's never been in love with anyone, of course, and he never will. He's Cato, he's a Career, and he doesn't do feelings. The metal is hot and it burns him, and he can't even get the energy to laugh at the girl as she curses loudly as her hands blister against the scorching metal. It's the only safe place, and it hurts them both, but they have no choice.
He's scared. For once in his life, Cato is scared, and that scares him more than the mutts do. He's a Career, he's from District Two. Nothing should scare him. He watches as Everdeen tries to take down mutts with her bow and arrow, and he stares at a particular mutt, with brown fur and brown eyes. He looks down, and there's a collar with a number two on it. He tries not to throw up, as his mind connects the dots and he realises what he's seeing. His eyes dart to a blonde mutt with green eyes and a number one on the collar, a small black mutt with brown eyes and a number eleven on the collar and one who looks almost the same but smaller and more innocent. He looks for Marvel, and sees him there, and he feels sick to the stomach. He begins to fill with cramps and he keels over.
He doesn't want to talk to the girl from twelve, but he needs to.
"Can they climb this thing?" he grunts, feeling in pain from the blows Thresh gave him, and the running, and the scalding hot metal of the Cornucopia. He's felt pain before, but not like this, not so much pain at one moment and not coupled with the emotional pain of losing someone.
He's said it. He's admitted it to himself that that's why he went after Thresh, that's why he's so feral, and that's why he's so scared that Clove is down there, but she's not Clove, really, is she? He wonders what they've done, what the Gamemakers have done to create these mutts. Are they really the tributes that they resemble? Do they have memories of the tributes? Do they think that they're on some sort of mission for revenge. He shudders at the thought.
He vaguely hears a conversation going on between Everdeen and Mellark, but he ignores it, concentrating on his own pain, concentrating on breathing, and thinking on how he can survive, and win these games. One thing is for sure. By the end of tonight he will be back in District Two. It is his actions now that determine whether he returns with glory, or in a coffin. His eyes lock with Clove's, and he searches for a bit of humanity in those eyes, searching for something of Clove that remains, but there's nothing there except pain and anger. He briefly wonders if that was all that there was to Clove anyway, but he dismisses the thought, hating himself for thinking that. She was more than that, he tells himself, and it's true, because she wasn't evil, not really. He tells himself that it is not the time to think of good and evil, careers and teenagers, now is the time to make his last moments in the arena memorable, and make them his last moments in the arena, not the last moments of his life. He notices Peeta is on top of the Cornucopia now, and he wonders how long it is until one of them dies. One of them has to die, and it will be Peeta, and it will be Katniss, not Cato.
Cato thinks. He needs to kill them both, because he is not dying, not today, not like this. He's going to die when he's an old man, he's going to die in his bed, and he's going to have a house in Victor's Village, and his life will be perfect. All he needs to do is kill the tributes from Twelve, and then it's over, it's all over and he's going to win and he's going to go on living his life.
The mutts are surrounding the horn, trying to leap up, trying to get a good foothold so they can get up and kill them. They aren't succeeding, though, they're built for running and killing and biting and tearing, not jumping, and so Cato concludes that as long as he's on the Cornucopia, he's safe. He thinks, and he begins to smile. Everdeen and Mellark are safe as long as they are on the Cornucopia. All he has to do is get them to fall. A plan starts to form, and so does a grin, a wild, feral grin, a grin that would deem him insane in the eyes of any viewer. His bloodlust is evident, and he's ready to kill them. He's ready to be crowned Victor of the Games.
He takes his chance as Everdeen fires an arrow at the big mutt that can only be Thresh, and he seizes Peeta in a headlock. He grins as he sees the blood pouring out of Peeta's calf, and he knows it's only a while before he'll die of blood loss. Of course, that's if Cato doesn't send him tumbling down to the mutts first.
He's thankful for the body armour again, knowing that it will guard against the arrows, guard against anything. He watches as Katniss aims an arrow at his head, but he isn't scared. He knows that if he goes down, Peeta goes down with him, and she won't kill Peeta. Whether they're really in love or not, she cares about him. Stupid.
Cato laughs. "Shoot me and he goes down with me."
He sees Katniss looking confused, wondering what to do, and both of them stand still like statues, wondering how it will end, and when it will end, and whether they'll just stand there for all eternity while Peeta slowly bleeds to death and Cato pretends he isn't wounded from his fight with Thresh. Cato notices that Peeta is suffocating, and his lips set into a tight, grim smile. He's going to win, and there's nothing either of the Twelves can do to stop him.
Peeta's hand rises to Cato's hand, marking a single 'X' on it, so that both of them can see. Cato and Katniss and the whole of Panem. He doesn't realise what it means until the arrow fires into his hand, and with a yell he lets go of Peeta and falls to the ground, yelling, because he knows that now there is no escape—he is going to die.
Cato yells, and he knows that he's not giving up with out a fight. He decides that he's not going to die hopelessly, die begging for mercy, he's going to fight. He could survive, if he really tried. He digs out a knife from within his clothes, and he stops a thinks for a second. It's Clove's knife. He remembers her playing with her knives, throwing them at the Cornucopia for practice, but he won't shed a tear, because now he needs to fight, now he needs to carry on, and he's going to fight until he dies or all of the mutts do. He sincerely hopes it's the latter.
He grabs the knife and thrusts it into a mutt, twisting it until the mutt screams its death scream, and he doesn't feel any remorse when he sees that it is the mutt that is Marvel. His mind doesn't have time to process how much of the original tribute is in each of these mutts, so he concentrates on fighting them, trying to fend them off and get back around the Cornucopia so he can climb up again, and this time he will kill both Everdeen and Mellark.
The mutts pull at him, they bite and they rip and they tear, and he's not sure whether he's glad for his body armour protecting him, or whether he wishes that he didn't have it and he could die quicker. He begins to lose his resolve, as they keep tearing at him. He closes his eyes for a second, wishing to block out the pain and anguish, but then he opens them again, because closing his eyes makes him look like he's giving up, and he's not giving up. He wants to scream out as he sees the brown mutt before him. The mutt with the number 'Two' around its neck. Her neck. Clove's neck. He looks at Clove (because he can't think of that mutt in any other way) and silently pleads her not to try to kill him. She tears into his arm, and tears at him, tears at his face, tears at anywhere she can get to.
That is when he gives up.
But that is not when it ends.
They keep tearing away at him, and he goes back on his original promise to him that he won't beg, and he won't yell. He begins to whimper, he begins to beg, and he stares at Clove's beautiful brown eyes that were always the eyes of a killer yet eyes that were beautiful—or at least, they were beautiful to him.
He's dragged around for hours, and all he can think of is the horrible pain that rips through his body, and Clove, and Clove's eyes, and the way she threw her knives. He knows that it's over long before it actually is.
The arrow pierces his skull just as Clove rips into his face, and it's all over in one eternal moment in which he thinks of Clove, and he thinks of all that they might have been and all that they never were.
Cato and Clove are over, and maybe it's okay, because both of them were born to die.
I hope you enjoyed it, Amy, and everyone else.
Please don't favourite without reviewing, yeah?
Thanks to Livvi for reading it through and assuring me that it wasn't as completely shit as I originally thought it was ;)