leave you drowning until you reach for my hand
cato/clove
an: i haven't written anything in over a year and i don't know how to write anymore and too much is happening and i don't know what to do anymore.
/
hell is empty
and all the devils are here
.
little fox little fox little fox is the first thing cato thinks when he sees her, short and slight with her dark hair pulled back into a braid, pale limbs swift and sure as she makes her way up to the stage. dark eyes sweep over the gathering of citizens before her, but the sly smirk on her face does not falter.
clove, she says confidently when they ask her name. clove.
he volunteers when the name of a scrawny little boy with a mop of yellow hair on his head who looks too young to be any older than twelve is called. his own actions leave him breathless, exhilarated; he doesn't know what to feel – he is bizarrely thrilled and too full of pride and just a little terrified and a million emotions in between.
when he reaches out to shake clove's hand, so small and cold in his, she looks up through her lashes at him and he wonders if she can feel him trembling.
.
the ride to the capitol is strange – he feels out of place here, unaccustomed to the plush and velvet seating, the crystal glasses, the gleaming silver platters that could double as mirrors. it feels as if he has stepped into a foreign world. he has grown up well off – most of them in district two have – but not like this, never like this.
it is all so bizarre he's not sure whether to laugh or cry.
it's only him and her now, their mentor and escort having wandered off to the bar car to celebrate another year of two strong, able-bodied volunteers. clove is perched on a window seat, gripping the window pane as she peers out at foreign, lush landscapes decorated with a plethora of green trees and sparkling pools of water.
cato makes his way over and sits down adjacent from her, shifting uncomfortably. she's staring intently at him, having turned the split second he made a move to sit by her. when he shifts his gaze to look at her, he sees her nose is covered in little dark freckles that float to sprinkle across her cheeks. her tiny hands rest in her lap now, smoothing down her dress.
he's seen this girl before.
"i've seen you before. at training, you know?"
clove blinks owlishly up at him, faintest hint of a smirk on her lips. "is that so?" before cato can say anything else, she continues, "scoping out your possible competition, huh?" and she's most definitely smirking now.
a startled laugh bubbles up in cato's chest. "i guess? i mean, yeah. isn't that the point?" when clove merely shrugs her tiny shoulders, he swiftly tries to steer the conversation in another direction. "so, are you any good?"
"like i'd tell you that." clove's dark eyes narrow slightly.
cato can only blink, eyebrows furrowing as the reality of the situation at hand pounds into him again and again. had he actually expected her to tell him anything of that nature? this is a matter of life and death, it really is - she isn't going to give him any information on her strengths or weaknesses. he almost smiles. he knew from the moment he saw her this morning (little fox little fox little fox) that she knew what she was doing up there. only now does he realize that her knowledge of the games goes much further.
"fair enough. just wondering; you don't look like much of a fighter is all," he bluffs, crossing his arms and averting his eyes. "so, like. what do you think? of the games, i mean."
"i think they're great. i mean, they're shit if you don't make it, but i'm not worried about that." clove speaks too quickly, but her eyes have lit up and a chesire-cat grin has spread across her face. with that, she stands, stretching slightly, and, before she walks away, leans down and whispers lowly, "might as well give them a good show, yeah?" her lips nearly graze his ear, but just like that she is walking away, hips swaying slightly with an air of confidence.
she's one of the most unhinged people he's ever met, and he likes her instantly.
(after all, he's always been a little disturbed - they all are out here, he supposes.)
.
clove doesn't say another word to him that day. they stand side by side in their chariot, skin brushing skin, waving to opposing sides of the building. the applause is deafening.
cato catches her looking at him from the corner of his eye when they pull up before the president, but she looks away the second he tries to look at her head on.
then he wonders if she had ever been looking at all.
.
cato has always known he was meant to be a fighter.
built, strong, and tall, he is most confident in his ability to take down the other tributes - a tiny dark-skinned girl, a pretty blonde, and a curly-haired boy all strike him as particularly easy to take down. he's skilled with a sword and he's pretty good with a bow if need be, and he is hulking and powerful and my god, he's been trained his whole life for this, he almost wants to laugh because it seems almost too easy.
he finds his attention being drawn to clove more often than not. she's so small, top of her head barely coming up to his shoulder. every day before training she seems almost giddy, bouncing on her toes in a way that reminds him of a child. cato isn't sure what to think of her, really.
clove is unafraid, they all learn rather quickly. she is deadly fast, and her weapon of choice of is knife. she is small and sleek and her aim is impeccable - she never, ever misses and is quickly deemed one of the strongest female competitors. she loves attention she gets from the other tributes, and she is always aware of people watching her.
little fox little fox little fox, cato thinks.
one day the pretty girl from district one brushes by him on her way to grab her bow and arrow from their station. she's beautiful, she is - pink, pouty lips and long blonde hair and huge blue eyes framed by long, thick lashes. he licks his lips when she sways her hips nonchalantly and flips her hair and bats her eyelashes at him when he glances her way.
cato's attention is diverted by the swift moving of objects - knives - in his peripheral vision. clove is peering at him, but when he meets her gaze she simply turns, pleased look on her face, and continues lobbing her knives into the synthetic chests of rubber dummies.
he comes up behind her once she's done. her arms are crossed loosely across her heaving chest.
"not bad," he says casually, and she turns, smirking expectantly. "show me?"
clove sneers, retrieving her knives from the instructor, who is scurrying about. "you fucking wish."
"no?" he quirks an eyebrow at her, makes a move to grab the thick knife in her right hand. clove is too quick, though, much to his surprise - she yanks it out of the way without flinching and reaches up to grab his collar.
"you try to touch me or my goddamn knives again and i will slit your fucking throat," she hisses, and he feels the slight pressing of cool metal against his belly. "and don't get near that fucking blonde again. she's trouble, i know it."
it's over in an instant, though, and before the instructor can pull them apart clove is walking away, hips swinging lazily, knives grasped tightly in her hands.
she turns her head and smiles smugly at him one last time, shrugging as if to say, you asked for it. the glint in her eyes says she's thinking of all the ways she could kill him with those knives.
he kind of hates her.
.
clove waits behind him in line for their interviews. she's got on a red dress and she's covered in glitter - it's in her dark hair and on her eyelids and floats down onto her cheeks. the biting remarks and tough skin that cato is used to from her clash with the ensemble, but maybe that's a good thing, he thinks. she is ethereal.
the pretty blonde from district one - glimmer, her name is - is on stage and cato is up next.
"don't fuck up," clove whispers, lips brushing the shell of his ear. she's on her toes, hand on his shoulder to steady herself. cato grins, despite himself.
a minute later, just as his name is called, he feels her tiny hand brush against his. it was most definitely an accident, he decides, and steps ahead into the world of bright lights and applause without looking back.
.
clove's interview goes off without a hitch. she'll get lots of sponsors, cato is sure of it.
she walks up on stage, clutching at the skirt of her dress to keep it from brushing the floor. she takes caesar's hand without hesitating, shaking it firmly. she pulls it back before he can kiss her hand.
"i've been told i'm alright with a knife," she says sarcastically, laughing, and the crowd laughs with her, taken under her spell.
cato tries so badly to hate her that his stomach aches.
.
at training the next morning, he catches clove throwing her knives with a force twice as vicious as usual. the second he makes a move towards her, she throws her remaining knives down and excuses herself.
she comes back twenty minutes later, looking deathly pale and eyes rimmed red.
clove doesn't make eye contact with him for the rest of the morning.
.
clove stops talking to him, after that.
.
they're all crowded around the screen in their suite - cato, clove, the stylist, mentor, and escort - anxiously awaiting their scores. none of them seem especially worried (why should they be, really?), but it's always interesting to see just how they measure up to the others in the eyes of the sponsors.
clove gets a ten. cato gets a ten. despite their differences in size and skill, they could not be more evenly matched.
"well, my mother will be proud," she says quietly and cato kind of wants to punch something because why her why not someone else anybody fucking else.
instead, he leans back against the leather seat and mutters, "impressive," in clove's direction.
clove's head snaps up, and she stares at him, unblinking. cato thinks she'll say something, but instead she storms off in the direction of her room
.
the night before the games, cato cannot sleep for the life of him.
he is not afraid. that much he is sure of. but the adrenaline racing through his veins accompanied by the never ending song of the cheering capitol citizens just down the street keep him wide awake. he staggers out of his room, aiming for a glass of water and maybe a lie-down on the couch for a bit.
clove is curled up on the couch, looking lost and vulnerable with her night dress pulled over her knees and her eyes wide as she peers out the window, stars reflected in her eyes.
she senses his presence almost immediately, and mutters, "fuck off."
"aw, why? i'm allowed to be here just as much as you are," cato says with a kind of mock defensiveness.
when clove speaks again, her voice is strained. "please. just leave me alone. please."
cato furrows his eyebrows in confusion. despite her pleadings, he steps closer, resting himself at the opposite end of the couch. "what's going on?
"go away." clove is begging now, anger flaring up in her features.
"oh, so that's it? you get to just fucking stop talking to me altogether without explanation, and that's that? nice. that's fucking ace. want to be even more selfish while you're at it?" cato spits, and he doesn't remember moving but he's practically on top of her now.
"fuck you." clove whispers, and fuck, she sounds so broken and sad and cato doesn't know what's going on and he just wants this to stop. "fuck you. i'm not here to make fucking friends, cato, that's not what any of us are fucking here for, and i am not going to sit around and laugh with you and talk to you just to be pitted against you in the end and -"
- oh. it all slots into place in cato's mind.
"i can't do it," she whispers, squeezing her eyes shut. "i won't."
"hey," cato murmurs gently, brushing back a stray piece of hair that's fallen into clove's eyes. "hey, c'mon now." clove blinks at him, whispers please don't, but she does not pull away when he tugs her close, when his lips come to rest on her forhead, her cheeks, her chin, her nose.
it is not enough. it is never enough, and then they are kissing and clove is pulling cato closer and closer, gripping his biceps desperately with her hands, whispering i can't i can't it's not fucking fair please don't all the while.
she's a walking contradiction and cato fucking hates her for it.
he kisses her harder, all teeth and tongue and she continues babbling into his mouth when he goes to help her with her nightgown. she lets him. she lets him because she's tired and needy and scared and she doesn't know what the fuck to do and she's so afraid and she doesn't want to get hurt but she really just wants somebody to comfort her right now.
they fuck frantically in the dark, her fingers digging sharply into the warm skin on his back. she is always too thin and too cold, her dark eyes wide, eyelashes fluttering, and he murmurs so fucking beautiful against her skin and kisses her again.
shut up, shut up, shut up, she hisses, shaking her head as much as she can and biting at his lip, fucking liar.
cato shakes his head and grins, nipping at the junction between her neck and bony shoulder. not lying, little fox. clove looks bewildered, but doesn't say anything.
they fuck because everything else is fucked up and tomorrow it's every goddamned tribute to themselves and despite their overconfident bravados they're both so fucking scared they don't know what to do with themselves because it's either her or him or neither of them coming out alive in a few weeks. never both of them.
they fuck because really, what the fuck is anyone going to do about it?
when cato reaches to twine their fingers together she pulls her hand away, says no, no, no. not that. please.
he understands. he hates it, but he understands.
clove is chanting his name like a fucking prayer (cato cato cato cato cato please cato), her voice a broken little whimper and he thinks she might be crying but she won't look him in the eyes.
when it's all over, and their covered in sweat and sin and panting, he traces her collarbones with his fingers. she shivers, goosebumps appearing on her cool skin.
after a while she tells him get off of me, and hoists herself up, pulling her discarded nightclothes on, pushing her hair out of her face, and turning to face him. she kisses him once more, tongue tracing his lips. clove tastes like the earth. she tastes like the sea and a sky without stars. she tastes like blood and hatred and so much fucking fear and cato never wants to let her go.
clove pulls back and cato thinks he hears her murmur i'm scared before she scampers off to her room, but he's not sure.
her words linger in his mind until he drifts off uneasily.
(please don't it's not fair i can't do this please i don't want to i can't please don't make me fucking love you)
.
he only sees her briefly the next day before it's time to get in their respective tubes to be taken up to their platforms.
clove's stance is confident, poised, and completely unfitting for the moment - the scared, whimpering girl from last night has scurried on back into her shell.
she squeezes his hand too tightly before she goes, murmurs, "and may the odds be ever in my favor." and it would be frightening but then she's laughing nervously, squeezing one of his hands in both of her small ones.
"see you out there, then?" his voice is strained.
"yeah, maybe," clove whispers, smiling sadly. cato pulls her close, and he wants to pull her straight into him, wants to keep her safe and warm down here, but he can't. they both know this. it is not debatable.
she slips away, down the hallway towards her station, out of his grasp.
cato hates that he can still taste her on his tongue.
.
clove is quick as a bullet when the starting timer goes off, launching herself off her platform and sprinting to the cornucopia, grabbing a bulging blue backpack nearly half her size without stopping (little fox little fox little fox). cato sees her fling a knife, doesn't see who it's aimed at because he has to go.
each kill is one step closer he reminds himself when he thrusts his sword into the small, curly-haired boy (district four, he thinks - never stood a chance).
he chants that over and over to himself as he goes stumbling off into the trees.
.
when cato falls asleep that night, it's with his arm around glimmer's waist, clove a few feet away, killing lizards with her knife with startling precision. she glances over at him from time to time, and he sees it in her eyes fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you but never saying anything aloud, because it's so much easier this way and both of them know it.
.
it's a slow kind of torture, the next few weeks - watching the other tributes get picked off one by one. glimmer is killed by a calculated swarm of tracker jackers. shame, but cato can't bring himself to think on it very much.
when it's announced that there is a possibility of there being two victors from the same district, hope bubbles up in his stomach, but he clenches his teeth and swallows it because this is the hunger games and he can't fucking let himself get his hopes up.
when it's announced that there will be a feast, of sorts, at the cornucopia, though, he can't help it.
clove grins, catlike. "i'll do it. i'm going. and i'll kill the girl from district twelve while i'm out there." the girl on fire.
(if katniss is fire then clove is the sea, and cato has always loved the sea.)
his first instinct is to say no, you stay here, i'll go, i'll kill her but the words get caught in his throat, because the thing is, like. there's always a chance of never coming back, and it's so so fucked up and he tries to sort out the muddled mess in his head but his brain keeps screaming IT'S HER LIFE OR YOURS TAKE YOUR FUCKING PICK.
so he lets her go, because really, what else is he supposed to fucking do?
.
her screams are awful. cato's head snaps up too quickly the second he hears them.
shrill, high-pitched shrieks of cato cato cato cato echo against every tree and rock and he is sprinting headlong towards the cornucopia, nothing on his mind except clove clove clove clove clove over and over again.
by the time he reaches the cornucopia, though, all of the other tributes have fled and he almost scurries back into the trees when he sees her, body barely visible in the tall grass.
there is so much fucking blood.
it gushes from her head, creates a pool of carnage in the dirt. it's in her mouth, too, smeared over her cheeks, and, just. oh god.
"cato," it comes out in barely a whisper.
"clove," he murmurs, wipes a hand over her cheek, "clove, clove, clove." clove's eyelashes are fluttering helplessly, and she's letting out all these breathy little whimpers that tell him she's not going to last much longer. "hey, just stay with me, okay?"
clove shows no signs of hearing any of his words. instead, she reaches up, grasps his shirt in one of her hands, and for someone so close to death she is awfully fucking strong.
her last words are, "cato, please. kill her. kill her, please, cato, just fucking kill her."
they are the last words she ever speaks before she's coughing, more blood in her mouth and her eyes rolling back in her head and there's so much gasping and choking and gurgling and cato just can't watch anymore, he fucking can't.
they are the very last words she ever speaks before she dies in his arms, right in front of him, right in front of all twelve districts, all of whom stare on stone-faced, his hand still on her bloody cheek.
he wonders if she would have wanted it that way.
.
he does not cry. he does not cry because he does not care, he does not love her, he does not. he does not cry because he is a warrior, he is fucking unbreakable. they will not break him, they won't. he does not cry because maybe clove let herself get attached, but he can't do that.
(and now her pleas from the night before the games make sense, and he feels a bit like a monster because this is all his fucking fault - )
he doesn't love her, he doesn't care about her, and he most definitely does not think of the freckles on her nose and her tiny hands and pale skin and remember how lovely her lips tasted in the dark.
.
in the last minutes of his life, cato cries.
he cries because he's cold, and he's scared, and there's blood all over his face, he cries because he is going to die at the hands of the girl clove begged him in her last moments to kill. he cries because he is so fucking close, he killed the boy from district eleven who killed clove, killed him ruthlessly and without thought. he cries because he has a mother and a father and a sister watching back at home and he was supposed to win this, bring pride to his district and he feels like a child, so fucking helpless.
he cries because he's only fucking sixteen and this isn't how his life is supposed to end.
he cries because he kissed a girl with raven hair and freckles on her nose and promised to keep her safe when he tasted her cool skin and now she's dead, bloodied body being carried home in a wooden coffin.
there's no time to thing before burning pain flares up in his arm and he's tumbling backwards, air knocked out of his lungs when he hits the ground, and there is biting and tearing flesh and he is screaming because nothing has ever hurt this bad, guilt and terror eating him away while he is torn limb from limb.
abruptly, the pain subsides and he is plunged into complete blackness and he swears he can still hear her please don't fucking make me love you please i can't please. he can see it, dark hair and skinny limbs and eyes full of secrecy, swift and fast and glorious, a true victor - she must've been thinking that when she volunteered at the reaping, a true victor.
"might as well give them a good show, yeah?" lips brushing his ear in the train.
little fox little fox little fox is the last thing he thinks before he stops thinking all together.
/