I've been meaning to write a Clato fic because they're my OTP right now, the love that never had a chance. So this takes place while the pair is on their way to the Cornucopia to get their bag (with the thing they need in it) and they are chased by the dogs while on their way, and they have a little talk and yeah.
Panting and wheezing, she can't breathe. She's run three miles no stop with three looks backs, just to make sure he is behind her. She is trained for this, but she is tired as she's ever been, because the woods is nothing like the training room. The treadmills left from the weights moved in no comparison to the dirty track her feet hits when she runs through the woods. Training lacked scene adrenaline, it lacked realism, there were no falling trees and flying unknowns following her, it was not hot and slimy, there was not the risk of death in training that the moment has. Clove trained her whole life to be unprepared and she had been convinced through the years lies that read there was no doubt of her survival, but now there is doubt, nothing she would admit but deep passed her demeanor was a will where she questions all the events after the death she sought coming and accepted.
She was going to die out here alongside her greatest friends, the only things she trusted with her life; the only things that would ever guarantee possible life, her black handled glimmering knives. Those same knives are strapped against her waist for easy access. She can reach down now with a palm, with three fingers, with two, and grasp them ever so tightly simply for them to be flung behind her, she would hit the target every time.
She is no Katniss Everdeen, she cannot shoot an arrow and stab a squirrel straight through the eye, no she is not an archery man, she is something entirely different. She need not a bow to pitch her weapons, just her rough finger tips, she can fling a blade all on her own in the dead of night at any height and her target better hope to god she was off her game –which was rare- or that odds were in their favor. She is still running now, her speed is unbeatable and her body is short and petite but her legs are long and flowing, she can fly in the air like a bird. She does. She is jumping over rocks and stems and bumps in the dirt that seem to startle the boy behind her, whom she has passed superiorly.
His hair is blonde-way brighter in assessment to hers-and it is short but the tips dance in the passing breeze like their moving bodies. She has forgotten what she is running from. She is reminded. Two steps early but right on time; she's passed the tumbling tree that was rammed into by an unnamable beast. The leaves are spurring over while the trunk of the high tree gets low and her heart gasps, it is scared, she is scared and fear is a feeling she is new to. She has seen dropping fire and raging winds, she has seen the face of disappointed, she has seen death and blood of her own, but she has not feared either till now.
Even if she is scared she is not surprised, she knows this is inevitable; the outcome was born to live but they were born to die. Each and every one of them, all 24, even the winner was born to die, born to kill, death does not scare her she has been ready for it all along. The death of the districts does not scare her, her own death seems not to scare her, but it is the death of that who runs with her that scares her more than this, and she will not be alive to see it happen, she will expense herself before witnessing that death. With the bang she stumbles to the side to dodge it, she looks behind her with first instinct.
'Cato!'
Senseless breathing, she is senseless but she does not stop for the response, she is still moving, dodging trees and slapping leaves out of her way while she does. The boy has no voice to answer her but he is breathing, loudly, but sternly, his long inhales are tough and determined and surpass her small nervous pants like his body passes ahead of hers. She can breathe again. She does. She sighs in relief because she can see him; he is very much alive, he always is. He is the most determined of them all, she tells herself, he has been ready for this since she was 7 and he older, battling it out in preparation. He is the best of the careers, he will outlive them all.
Look at his eyes, she thinks, they are determined, he is big and strong and not so very bright but he is clever and angry and hostile, he contains everything he needs to win. He has agility and adrenaline, when he is about to die he will not, when he is about to be crushed he will run faster, he will try harder, he will not teach himself what he does not know for he has everything he needs to live. She is almost positive he will. He is not like her though they are the same. She went into the game believing she will win, bowing to her parents before her going with parting words along the lines of 'I will see you in weeks.' Now she is not the same, she is not as proud as she once was, she is not as sure of herself, she is not as determined as she is starved and heated and unused to her surroundings. She knows she will not live but does not fight to, there is nothing special about home anyway, and there is nothing to look forward to other than oxygen-which if she admitted, was not all that special either.
It is hidden though, the fact that she has internally given up, her face is still convincing as it holds the eyes of a killer who will not be caught but her eyes are nothing like his. He has endured what she has but his eyes are different, he still believes in accomplishment, he believes in winning because it's all he's ever known, but she knows better. They have not stopped running nor have they stopped being chased. The species is repulsive and smells of product, it is surely not natural not that anything from the Capitol was. It is a tie between a wolf and a dog. It has ears that bend down but a body wide and strong. It has teeth that are spiked at each tip and eyes that glow even in the dark. It is vicious and gritty, it can pass as a career any day, it is the complete embodiment of one, and if she is not crazy Clove will swear she looked into its bright fiend eyes and saw the puzzled smile of a brown haired boy from District 1; a boy she would have considered a friend anywhere out of the arena, you have no friends here.
"You should try to run faster." He speaks in shaky breaths that squeezed through his organized gulps for air.
"You don't say?" her voice is the same, but she smiles, this girl who rarely smiles even in times of pleasure can be amused by one line from a naïve boy in a life or death moment. She is speeding up and past him now and she is wise, she cocks her head to the side in direction and he is understanding, he nods his head at the plan.
The mutants, because she cannot place a name nor does she have time to, are on the track of the two children, because that is what they are. Those things are faster than they are but have not seemed to catch up, it is lucky odds for the moment. They are in advance, getting closer, breathing the air that has left the noses of the boy and girl. They are at their feet, and then they are not. Now they are just at a tree, it is huge and hollow and makes the gamemarkers question why they ever placed it there, because now District 2 has gotten away.
Clove cannot run any farther, her knees are buckling and her head is spinning and her legs have given out, she drops down. He is right behind her.
Breathing heavily he drops to the floor beside her, leaning on his palms, his lungs begging for a break. "We made it." He smiles to her though she is not looking his way. Her back is to the ground and her eyes to the sky which is dark and dizzy and starless, blank and never ending.
"Of course we did." She is still confident on the outside, she is still a career, she bows to no one and shows no vulnerability, especially not to the people she is to kill and who are to kill her.
"This isn't safe they could be anywhere, you know the Capitol likes to throw random shit into the arena. They fall from the sky." He is right but he makes no attempt to move, only to place his body like hers, right beside her. They are still not full of air.
"Do you suppose we get up and run around some more than?"
"Well-no, I can't exactly feel my legs, but I won't be feeling them either once those things have bitten 'em off." He jokes, he shows a good point but Clove is in no position to care.
"Well than you better make a run for it now, before they get you." She smiles. She is as empty as the sky that blankets them, as crazy and deranged as it is without its stars to light it.
"You're not scared hm? Come all this way to die?" he is still right, he is convincing, he cares. She doesn't.
"I cannot die Cato," she starts, his name in her mouth is one of the sweetest things she has yet to taste, it is honest and fitting, it is meant to be there. "nothing hurts me."
"As much as I'd like to believe it, we might be careers, but we're not immortal Clove." He is right again, he is always right, but this time he is something different. He is her, he is vulnerable, and he understands death and dying.
"Are you scared to die?" she is gone now, definitely gone, she speaks with no thought like she once did, she is the cause and effect, she confides in him as if he is her knives, but less deadly. "I'm not scared, you would think after years of training to kill you wouldn't think death is possible, you could destroy anything in your way. But you can't Cato, you just can't. They're not as good as us, but they've got something we don't. I'm not sure what it is, maybe something to live for."
He doesn't speak because he knows she is right. They have nothing to live for. He can come home with a trophy, with millions, with a title, and his father high and mighty will still look down upon him with pity. She hates her family, they are stupid and raw, and they do not care about anything and in turn have raised a daughter who is the same. They have made her who she is and she hates that, she hates herself. He did not know what to say, and she noticed this, so she speaks instead.
"You see, I cannot die." She tries to explain one more time. "I have nothing to live for, I am already dead."
"You don't care about living do you? This whole thing, you'd throw yourself right in front of that fire girl, you'd suicide out. All this for nothing?"
"What makes you think I'd do that? What makes you so sure I'd let her win?" Clove's voice stays at a consistent tone, which is airy and vacant.
"I know you more than you think I do Clove, your eyes might be evil to everyone else but they're weak to me." Weak; that is not at all how you would describe Clove of District 2, she is anything but. She was trained and elevated to be strong and smart and devious, but not weak, never weak, never what she was.
She is caught off guard, she skips a breath, she thinks. He knows her too well; he knows her secrets, her weaknesses. He has witnessed her at every moment, how she moves when she is fighting, how she glides when she is running, how she smiles only in the dark when they are alone. He is the reason she is not truly dead, not in flesh, and though she claims otherwise, not in spirit either.
"Congratulations, you can tell how crazy I've gone. I'm completely mad and bare; stick your sword through me now you'll get no blood. I'm gone Cato, you've got a really shitty partner. "
"I'm not, not yet."
"That's bullshit, you know it. We're all dead, we all died the minute we stepped foot on this soil. You've got nothing at home, your fathers a fuck and your mom," her voice isn't angry, it is serious, frustrated, it has lost all hope. "your mom's dead, you've got nothing." She almost spits it, she feels no remorse.
"Way to make me feel like a million bucks, Clove." He's up now, he's hurt but he won't say it. They are both too stubborn, they are each other. "Well get the fuck up, we have to get that bag don't we?" he tries to control his anger, for her at least, she is not at her best and he knows it, but he cannot help the whopping amount of heat and hate that overcomes his body.
Cato has the anger of a thousand bulls, but never since the reaping, not since day one has he been able to unleash it on the dark haired girl rising from the ground, not since he laid eyes on her could he tear her down. He wondered exactly how he would kill her if he could not even yell back at her and make her feel as nasty and unnecessary as he did now. Of course, that is not a problem anymore, not since the speakers claimed a double victory. They can win the games, both of them, together.
"I might not have anything at home to live for, but I'm not dead." He is still convinced he can convince her, but she is not swayed, she does not care.
"What makes you think that? After all this, after all I've said you still think you've got a soul?" she smirks and rolls her eyes while they walk, they know exactly where to go, they have been on this path too many times that even if the trees have changed she still knows the sights and smells.
"I've still got you yeah?"
What.
"What?" she does not stop to turn, she can't.
"You said I don't have anything to live for, but I've got you."
This time she stops and turns and looks, her eyes cannot look past his because they grab her attention. She is stiff and unaware of what to do in situations like these.
"Once you're gone, then I'm dead. So I'd appreciate you not dying on me, not till we win this. We can win this, Clove."
She does not know if this is real or if he is just persuasive, his face is dirty and his clothes are ripped and the blonde of his hair has turned dingy but he still shines at the shadow of the moon.
"...Well we better get going than, shouldn't we?" is all she can say, she cannot think of anything to speak to him, she was not made of sweetness but carved of stone; she has never been faced with love.
He smiles though; he walks ahead of her as they make their way through the trees. They are almost there to reach their fates, inevitable cruel fates, but she does not keep silent.
"Hey, Cato." She speaks to him from behind; her voice is more defenseless than she has ever let it be. He does not stop his pace, they never stop seem to stop.
"Hm?"
"Maybe I'm not dead, not fully, not after all." It was funny how quickly someone could change, how with one blink they could be unrecognizable, and with one word their morals could shift.
"What makes you say that?" he mimics her in his loud jock voice; he pushes low bushes and branches out of his way.
"I have you."
Careers have no souls, they are killing machines, they fear nothing and trust no one, especially not each other for they are their greatest threats. Careers are trained to come out alone and alive, they live for nothing but success, they are truly not thriving. If that be the case, if that be true, then Clove and Cato are not careers. They are simply children, children who were caught up and thrown aboard a boat they could not swim from, they were destined for a life they could not escape. They were forced to be dead inside, they were given nothing else to live for, but they are not careers, they are something entirely different.
They both step foot where the games began, the centerfold of lost hope, where training and living came into place, a ground that turned confidence into fear. They walk onto the ground both with plans of life after the games, hoping for something better than what they came with. They touched it with their shoes both destined for something. They entered the Cornucopia both with something to live for, they have each other. If after everything something seems to fail, if their vulnerability attacks them by the back, if one of them has to let go then and only then will they have nothing else to live for. Then, then and there, will they truly be dead. He is her knives, her only reveal, without him she is useless, and without her he is already dead.
Omg so yeah I wasn't really sure how to end it, hoping it was good (: They might be a little OOC but I wrote it from how I predicted their relationship/character might be. They told each other things before this, because Clove seems to know about his past, and they've known each other possible before the games. It's all really how you want to interpret it. So yeah, Happy Hunger Games R&R.
-Chels