AN: Hey everybody! Couple quick pre-story notes here:
Usually with my songfics the song has to go with the story. Like if there's dialogue in the song it's in the story too, but this one's a little different. The lyrics are more like themes. Really the story could stand alone without it, but I like the song and it was the inspiration for this particular story so it seems appropriate to keep it in here.
Yes this story can be paired with The Combination/The Conspiracy if you want it to be. Otherwise, again, it can stand alone.
Say you see through the folly
But you do it for the fame
The train speeds onward, racing between mountains and under tunnels at an incomprehensible speed. She's rarely been in a motor vehicle before, and certainly never one this fast. Whenever the cars she's ridden in gathered any kind of substantial speed, they rocked and shook like mad. They kicked up dust and clanked as they scattered rocks. Every bump and crack in the road was felt. Inside this silver bullet, she feels only a slight leaning sensation on the curves. The liquids stay flat in their glasses, the silverware never quakes and the sound, or lack thereof, is somehow deafening, especially when she considers what awaits her. There is nothing to do but think, nowhere to be but her own head, here in this train, headed to this place.
She understands the reason behind the spectacularity of the train. The impression of power it's meant to imprint on each and every Tribute. The feeling of hopelessness, yes hopelessness, it's supposed to inspire in them. There is no escape. Even if she wanted it, it is an illusion, as illustrated by this train. There is no turning back the clock. Even if she wished she hadn't, she could not go back and not volunteer, as evidenced by the speed with which they are taking her from her home. Even if she was concerned she'd need it, her family could not help her, a fact made clear by their total inability ever to keep her in her District or even to stop her training. She is in this now. She is up to her mouth in the Games. She is on her own. She will succeed or fail on her own. She will be legend or loser and up until now she thought the difference was dependent on her. But this train proves her wrong. The Capitol will choose its Victor and she can only hope it will be her.
But she does have a edge. She knows her strategy. She knows her strengths. She has already been educated in everything from crowd pleasing and people reading to feeding herself even if the Capitol provides no immediately apparent food and she knows more about any school of fighting than anyone she's ever met. She has studied previous Games. She knows the minds of the Gamemakers, knows their pods, and can either avoid, evade or outsmart them. She is fast, the fastest runner her age, even including her District Partner. She can fight. She is ruthless. She is prepared to kill. Hope cannot be an illusion. Whatever this train is trying to prove to her, it must be wrong.
And I'm fighting the jet stream
Drinking cheap wine on airplanes
The sensation of flying. The train is on the ground, but he can easily imagine it is not. He's never been up in a plane, but he has the impression this is what it must feel like. As the train races over a long bridge and he is given the visual of a brown and churning river below he is convinced this is what it must be like in a low-flying plane.
The speed is breathtaking, but he wishes it wasn't, for the faster the train goes, the faster they approach their destination, and for him, the destination is death. He has no chance. He knew it from the moment they called his name. Small chance in an ordinary year, but no chance now, not if she is going with him. When he left home, he left for good. Watching his brothers walk out of that room in the Justice Building was the last time he'll ever see them. He wishes this train could crawl to the Capitol. He wishes this journey would last the next fifty years. He would count the leaves on the trees, draw them, document them every one and then go back and do the same for the branches and blades of grass, if they'd let him. But they won't. They've imprisoned him here. And soon they'll hold him in their Training Center. And after that, the Arena, where he will die prey if he's lucky and a murderer if he isn't. And so far he hasn't been lucky. But for now, he's confined here in a train with a girl he has loved for as long as he can remember.
You're in L.A. not Chicago
Training begins and from the first minute, it's different to training at home. First, the sheer number of kids has dropped significantly. Second, she knows none of them, except for from memories of the Reapings or the chariot ride last night. Of course, she knows Cato, her friend and District Partner, and the name of the District 12 Female because the name "Katniss!" screamed by a little girl with blond braids rang in her head as she went to sleep last night, but how strange it is to know only three trainees' names.
And the trainers are different, kinder, more sympathetic as they teach them to kill. She needs no lessons there though. And she certainly does not want their compassionate support, their praise when her knives hit their marks. Shut up, she thinks. Leave me alone. Put us in the arena already.
Key under mat
I walk the dog, order in
Home alone
He isn't hungry, but he knows he has to keep eating. It won't do to put himself at an even worse disadvantage by losing weight here in the Capitol, so he orders the mildest food he sees on the menu and nibbles on it, drinking sips of water in between each bite.
He sits alone in his room, wishing he were better prepared for this. He knows he's strong. Katniss was right about that. But that strength is the end of his skill. What good will it do him to be able to wrestle the boy from 2 to the ground if the boy can throw a spear right into his chest from nearly fifty feet away? Fifty feet is far too far to wrestle someone. He wishes he were more capable of protecting her, but somehow he knows his mother was right. She's a survivor. She doesn't need him. She never has. Even without the bread he gave her years ago, she would have found some way to keep going. In fact, under these circumstances, his presence near her in the arena would probably be more of a hinderance than a help.
Found your letter on a full-moon Sunday night
Some other girl in your spell, casting plans for her life
Pour the vodka and it dulls sharp lies
Breathe the words of diamonds on rings
What was he thinking, blurting that out in front of all of Panem? He's in love with his District Partner? First, he's helping her, not himself. He drew attention to her, made her look good and himself look so weak that he couldn't even hold his tongue. Why would he do that?
Unless he really does love her, in which case, she now knows that the way to get to one of them is through the other. He has given that tool to her. Is he mad? Why did he come here with her if he loves her? He should've let her go in alone. It takes a while for her to remember that he did not volunteer. He was Reaped. And in 12, there are hardly ever any volunteers. It's not like 2. She and Cato both chose to come here, as did his girl. But the boy from 12 did not.
Cato is beginning to really hate the girl. First her stylist outdoes all the rest of them. Then she outscores them. And now some boy who doesn't even matter has somehow gotten the whole Capitol to fall for her. She can tell he hates her by the set of his jaw, the way he holds his hands in fists as they watch the highlights of the interviews. Caesar Flickerman, who always tries to remain relatively unbiased, is even having difficulty stopping talking about the two from 12 long enough to close the ceremony.
Cato looks at her. His eyes, so full of anger a moment ago, are questioning, hopeful. He wants her to agree with him. He wants her to hate them, too. "They don't matter," she says. "They're all just numbers. And the Capitol will love her less once we're done with her." She doesn't hate them. She refuses to feel anything for her fellow Tributes. No. Not nothing. There's something there for Cato. There is friendship there. There is affection in some form. There is a lack of willingness to hurt him. She would, if it became necessary, but she would not like it. But that's all she can afford. She knows that in the coming weeks her love of life will have to eclipse everything else. Anger, hate, loyalty, love. Any and all energy will need to be spent staying alive.
Enobaria comes up beside her and hands her a tiny cup full of clear liquid and tells her it'll help her sleep. Clove raises it to her lips. The smell burns her nose and the taste makes her want to cough, but she doesn't. She swallows it all down and goes to bed.
And you didn't mean to do it
So I don't have to believe it
If you didn't really mean it
Magical thinking gets us by
Clove talks to him as she bandages his arm. She doesn't mention the boy from 4, for which he is grateful. They were supposed to be allies, she and the boy, and they can't be now, thanks to him. But she doesn't mention her own kills either. She is deadly and apparently almost totally devoid of mercy, but he has a feeling that is, at least in part, an act. She won't even look at the places where the bodies were.
And she won't keep quiet. It is as if she doesn't want to give herself the silence to think. She talks to him about what she's doing to his arm, how she's cleaning it, how the cleaning solution will sting, but that's good because it's eating up any potential infection. She tells him how she's wrapping it, not too tight, but just tight enough, where she learned to do it. She's right about the sensation the cleaning solution brings, but other than that, she never hurts him. He watched her kill four people, more than anyone else, even the boy from her District, but she is almost gentle as she helps him now. And when his arm is securely bandaged, she hands him a rolled up wad of gauze and the bottle she used to clean his cut. "Keep them close." she says. "I'll help you change the bandages tomorrow, but if you get an infection, no one will carry you, so be careful."
Sing for the aftershow
Those candy-colored lips
Your age is showing and you've gotta harder for it
Lover Boy didn't sleep. She could tell when she held her watch that he was only pretending, and then, poorly. He must have known the Girl on Fire would drop that nest and he never warned them. He didn't even move away from the attack, worried as he must have been that to leave the camp would raise suspicion. So rather than take himself and them out of harm's way, he sat by and let this happen to all of them.
She realizes now how badly she misjudged him. She thought he felt guilt for the crimes he's committed in here. She doesn't for her own offenses, but he is not like her. But she has no reason to look out for anyone in this arena, not even Cato, not really. As much as protecting him would be instinctive, it's really impractical, too. But even so, she would still have moved the camp had she known what Fire Girl was planning. And he didn't. Not even to protect himself. She'd thought she could trust him, if only as far as one can trust an ally in the arena. She'd thought he'd at least be interested in self preservation, but apparently he isn't, which makes him nearly impossible to predict. This boy she thought was soft and stupid from the minute he opened his mouth in his interview is, in reality, a great danger to her own person. She could kill him, she knows that. She could annihilate him with one hand, but she didn't because she allowed herself to fall for the same act he captured the Capitol with. It's good then, that Cato cut him. However gentle he may have seemed, however relatable, however soft, he is a danger to anyone and everyone but the girl who dropped a wasp's nest down on his head. He's an idiot. A lovesick idiot.
Some ally he made, she thinks. The worst of the hallucinations have stopped by now, but that does not mean all the venom from those things has worked its way out of her system. Her muscles are sore, her joints stiff, her stomach boiling sick and aching with hunger by turns, not to mention the memories of the hallucinations. She no longer lives in them, but it's not possible to evict them from her brain. And in addition to all of that, she is still trying to find a way to contend with the seven lumps raised by the wasps that found her before she found the lake. They're swollen and painful and she has no idea how to repair the damage they did. It's the boy from 3 who helps. He tells her she has to remove the stingers and then goes to find some leaves to draw out whatever poison is left. When she asks him how he knows all this about technology and nature, he just tells her he likes learning. She and Cato help each other dig the stingers out and treat the welts with leaves and cleaning solution, then wrap or tape the sites.
It's always easier with freshmen
I'm not as clever, it should bring you to life
Cato crouches beside her, talking to her, begging her to stay with him, but she can't. She can barely understand him. She has never felt so heavy. She knows she'll never move under her own power again. She can't stay here with him. Their plan should have been different. He should have had his eyes on her the whole time, not gone looking for the boy from 11. They'd thought they were being clever, trying to take out an opponent before he even became a threat, but they were wrong.
Even long before now, the plan was wrong. They should have killed that boy from 12. They'd clung to the hope that the Capitol would want to see him and Fire Girl together and they had been right, but it had cost them. The Capitol had fallen for 12 and only 12. They would be the Victors. And Cato and Clove had let them both live long enough to allow that to happen.
Maybe it was the giant from 11 who struck her dead, but it was all because of Lover Boy, his stupid romance, and the cut to his leg that brought his District Partner here. If he'd never been cut, she'd have stayed away and they could have tracked and killed them all. But they surely can't now.
And you didn't mean to do it
So I don't have to believe it
Peeta wakes, feeling hungrier than he has in days. It takes him a moment to understand why. He had been at death's door, and then he'd been asleep. And now he feels much better. He looks around for Katniss, thinking maybe she'll have an explanation. And she does. She's sleeping, or unconscious, her hair matted, her face smeared with blood from a cut above one eyebrow.
He wants to rush to her, but he can't quite manage rushing. He moves as quickly as he can to her side. She's breathing. He hasn't slept through her canon and woken to find that the Capitol could not retrieve her body because it is encased in a stone cave. She is alive, but in need of medical attention. He gets to his feet, bracing himself against the cave wall, but he finds he doesn't need to. Whatever she got going into that feast has restored him if not to the strength he had when he fought Cato, to something close. His muscles are sore. His joints ache. He's so hungry he feels sick, but he must see to Katniss first. He collects a bottle of water and washes his hands in a thin cool stream of clean liquid. After drying his hands, he finds bandages in Katniss's pack. He lost the cleaning solution Clove used on his arm the day he fled from the tracker jackers, but he makes use of the medicines Katniss has collected, rinsing what blood he can from her wound, her hair, her face. She used some of the cream she got for her burns on his cut, so he smears hers with that as well. As he does it, he gets a close look at the cut, wondering exactly what happened. He'll have to wait for Katniss to wake up to find out.
He's never wrapped a bandage himself, not on a wound this severe, but he remembers what he learned from the times Clove wrapped his arm. She knew what she was doing and he wishes he had her skill now. In fact, he almost wishes she were here to do it, but of course, wishing for her help would not get it. At this stage, she would kill him if she saw him again.
So he resolves to do it himself. He raises Katniss's head and rests it on his legs, supporting her head and neck carefully. Clove said she was wrapping securely, but not so tightly that he's lose circulation in his fingers. But how would someone lose circulation to their forehead? He doesn't know, but he can see that she's already bled a lot so his best bet is just to wrap tightly. Clove always kept the bandages flat, so he does the same as he unrolls and wraps. He does a few loops around Katniss's head, and then decides to stop, feeling the bandage he's wrapped is strong enough to stop whatever bleeding might still be happening, and also knowing he will probably have to use what he has left to rewrap in a day or so.
He removes Katniss's shoes and socks and then manages to get her into the sleeping bag before he finally sits down to eat something. He's through two pieces of the groosling Katniss has been pressing him to eat, and starting on the third when he hears the anthem begin to play. He moves the the mouth of the cave and looks out through a heavy misting of rain. It's just a glimpse of the seal he sees before Clove's picture is in the sky.
If you didn't really mean it
Magical thinking gets us by
When her image fades away again, he sits down right there on the floor, his hunk of groosling still in his hand. He takes a small bite of it, but it doesn't taste as good as it did a moment ago.
She would have killed him. She would have killed Katniss. But she spoke up for the boy from 3. And she helped him after the fight at the Cornucopia. He remembers the look in her eyes as she averted them from the bodies of her victims. He knows that if he is to have any hope of getting Katniss and himself home, she had to die, but that doesn't make it easier. Clove was brutal and cruel, but she had some goodness in her, too. Some humanity, even humor. He takes another bite of groosling and remembers joking with her about the mines. She was brave, but she was nervous to carry that explosive. So was he, but they'd tried to be brave in front of each other, tried to laugh it off.
My fairweather friend
Fairweather friend
He wonders if he should have tried harder to protect her.
He wonders how she died. He hopes it was quick and painless.
Live for the folly, but you did it for the fame
Now you're fragile as porcelain
Katniss said Thresh broke Clove's skull with a rock. Her death can't have been drawn out, but Cato isn't so lucky. He didn't want them to die, even the part of him that knew they had to if Katniss was to live never wanted this. Hours and hours of cold, and bleeding, and Cato's voice, even his whimpers amplified by the metal of the Cornucopia. Peeta never wanted that. He's always known who they were, but no one sows what Cato reaps. So when Katniss finally shoots him, he's glad. Cato and Clove can look after each other.
Drinking cheap wine on airplanes
Did I ever leave Chicago?
I got your message
Glad you're doing well
They were friends before the Games anyway. And sometimes he'd seen something of himself in Cato. The way he looked at Clove. And at the Cornucopia that fist day, someone had screamed and Peeta had seen him whip around, his eyes wide, fearful, searching. When he saw relief flood Cato's face, Peeta had followed his gaze and found her, kneeling beside the girl from 7, cleaning her knife on the girl's shirt. Cato had thought she was the one who screamed, but she wasn't. And the way he'd sounded as he'd held Peeta around the neck on that last evening in the arena. It wasn't his voice. Not really. He fell apart in the arena, but he'll look after her now. They can put each other back together.
And you didn't mean to do it
So I don't have to believe it
After the war, when Katniss starts her book of memories, he adds to it, recalling his brothers and his father, even a story of his mother reading to him when he was very small. Katniss prints out his memories of drawing on the paving stones with Madge and Delly. He draws pictures of them, all of them.
If we didn't really mean it
Magical thinking gets us by
But he keeps his memories of his District 2 allies to himself, writes the best of them down one evening, sketches an image he's held in his head for years of them talking to each other. They were in the arena together, but they still talked like friends. For a long time he'd thought that was just because they were from the same District, but it's taken years of getting to know Katniss, relearning her, loving her, to realize they knew that feeling too.
Gets us by
The Capitol never touched his memories of Cato and Clove in the arena, he's discerned. Only the memories of Katniss ever had that shiny quality to them. It's his memories of them that help him learn to trust her again.
Say you see through the folly
But you did it for the fame
Katniss hated them, so he doesn't share the images or the memories with her. Maybe he should. Maybe he's doing them an injustice by not saying anything. She should have an accurate picture of who they were but Katniss wouldn't want to hear it. She would argue and he doesn't want to hear anything against those two.
My fairweather friend
Whatever has happened, whatever came of his Games, he is glad he knew them.
AN:
Aaaaand the end of the story AN. I didn't want to weight you guys down with my ramblings before the story so here they are.
Yes, another songfic from me (shocking! haha). I listen to a lot of music all the time and I think about these characters all the time so I end up with literally a dozen of these. If you like when I post songfics let me know because I tend to shelve them for years and then just post them spontaneously one day!
I guess this one came about because I always kind of think Clove and Peeta could be friends. Obviously Peeta can be friends with just about anyone and Clove...well...can't really. But he'd see decency in her somewhere and remember her fondly. And Fairweather Friend suits them perfectly because all the Careers in every Alliance ever were fair weather friends. So I think that's how Clove and Peeta would see each other in THG.
Disclaimer: Don't own either THG or "Fairweather Friend".