There were no sparks when their eyes first met.
There was no fire igniting in them when they first made contact.
There was only a glassy coldness that swept through the both of them that said the same thing:
I will kill you.
.
They had not met before. They had not ever exchanged a word, or a smile.
They had lost the ability to smile a very long time ago.
They were not friends. They were not partners. They were not even allies.
They were hunters, and they would only settle for each other when it came to their prey of choice.
They were ready to tear each other apart and make it more beautiful and gory than their most twisted, dark nightmares that were sweet dreams to them.
In everything they did, their message radiated far and wide.
I will kill you.
.
They were all nothing but targets in their way.
The other tributes were nothing to them. They were merely more practice dummies to show off their skills to each other, to intimidate.
Everything they did was to show the other how strong they were. It was to scare. There was never anything silly like love and star-crossed lovers because their hearts were as empty and cold as their eyes when they looked at their dying victims.
(the possibility that they could feel an emotion as complex as love was as likely as letting the tiny skeleton of a girl from 11 join the Careers)
There was no competition. Their only challenge was each other, and they wanted to win and show Panem that they were the best; they killed the best, they watched as they died, they won.
And the other tributes that got in the way?
Having a body count never hurt anybody, especially not two murderers looking to murder each other.
In the night, when all the bodies were as still as the dead, the wind in the arena whispered the words of Cato and Clove.
I will kill you.
.
Red was Clove's favourite colour.
She bathed in it at the Cornucopia, and she relished the colour oozing from the wound her knives made.
She made the deaths slow and painful, making sure that every camera was trained on her and only her (can't you see that she would make such a better show than him?) and all of Panem watched as this girl hacked and sawed her way to the heart of the Cornucopia; skin painted red and eyes all shades of insane.
And Cato watched, watched as this little girl with her little knives took down tribute after tribute.
He watched as Panem watched and he howled while Panem cheered.
They were supposed to be watching him.
No matter. They'll be watching him kill her in time.
The monster in Cato's chest screamed four words that would possess him for the rest of his life.
I will kill you.
.
His steel blue eyes were unnerving to everyone but her. They were too cold and too devoid of anything, but Clove wasn't afraid of them or him.
It's because her chartreuse green eyes were identical - they held no warmth, no mercy, nothing.
They bore holes in each other, the way two animals would stare each other down before a fight. Their fingers were itching to kill, but they had to remember that their main goal was to win, and that killing each other too quickly would take away the fun of it.
Clove was ready to let Cato get a taste of victory before taking it all away from him.
Cato was ready to rip Clove apart with her hopes of winning and her blood seeping out of the wound his sword would make.
They were already dreaming of it, their heads filled with fantasies of death and blood; fantasies that children their age should not be dreaming of.
But the soundtrack to their horrific imagination was what spurred them on; the words echoing in and out of their skulls like a lullaby.
I will kill you.
.
The alliance was meant to be broken.
Cato and Clove knew this, they knew it would be between the two of them and no one else, and that they would kill the members of the Careers just to show each other how strong and vicious they are.
So when that girl from 12 kills both Glimmer and Marvel, Cato and Clove were furious. They weren't going to let some District 12 scum beat them; they worked too hard for this for some beggar to take it all away.
But the tracker jacker's stings hurt so much and the hallucinations that followed were almost too much to take.
Clove bathing in Cato's blood, his dead body a rug for her feet, his eyes her new necklace and her smile too pointed to be real. It drove Cato to insanity, seeing him dead and lifeless with Clove literally stepping all over him with that smirk on the lips that he wanted to cut out.
Cloves visions were no better. Cato's golden hair was flattened by the victor's crown, his sword still matted with her dark red blood; Cato cherished and cheered for and loved while Clove's disfigured body was left to rot in the remains of the arena, her brown hair red with her own blood and her eyes unseeing. Clove screamed with anger and forced her eyes open, only to see the great oaf that was Cato still out with the tracker jacker hallucinations, twitching every once in a while.
And then when they announce the rule change for the winners (for District 12, she knows, he knows, it's for them) Cato almost wants to gag. A rule change? Two victors? Who would be the best? Who would have been the ultimate killer, the ultimate survivor?
You can never tell with two winners.
Clove strived to be the best, she was the best and no one would ever know that if she and Cato won. But if she won, and only her, then everyone will know that she's the strongest, she's the most vicious, she's the true winner.
Needless to say, Cato and Clove were not too happy about this new change in the Game that they were so keen on playing.
But they were the last of the Careers now, and there was still four other tributes in the playing, and they had to save the best show for last.
Even though the monster screamed for blood, Cato and Clove had to silence the demons in their hearts and work together to win.
Not win together.
They weren't trained to back down, and they weren't waiting their whole lives to share the spotlight. But if this is how the Game is played, then they'll go along with it before having fun themselves.
Cato takes first watch when night falls, and he's already thinking of all the ways he'll take Clove by surprise when they finish killing 12.
Cato smirks when he sees Clove's tiny frame sleeping, curled up next to the tree trunk, and he can't help but to review all the ways he'll kill her over and over again.
He reaches out to touch her skin, the skin that was red with her victim's blood a few days before, the skin that will be red with her own blood in a few day's time.
He whispers those four words into her ear, strands of dark brown hair like tentacles snaking down her pale neck, down the neck that Cato could so easily snap.
Clove's eyes snap open, almost yellow in the moonlight, his breath cold on the back of her neck.
She smiles a smile that's all teeth and no warmth, and in the dark her teeth could be knives and her lips could be blood.
She whispers the four words back and she means it with all her heart - the heart that's as cold as his own.
I will kill you.
.
They know that the feast is the one way they'll manage to kill the rest of the tributes, and their fingers are itching to kill, to quench that thirst for blood in their beings.
They wanted to kill that girl from 12, and show each other that this District 12 scum is nothing but the dirt beneath their boots. They both wanted to kill her, to show Panem that they were the best.
Cato is insistent on killing her, killing that poor excuse of a girl from the poor excuse of a District.
(she's mine, he growls, but Clove doesn't flinch, doesn't back away like they all do. Instead, she holds his stare and her eyes throw knives at him. But then Cato smiles his wicked smile because he knows that Clove is his to kill and she can have her little fun before he rips her to shreds)
But he hands over the role of her death to Clove with something malicious in his eyes.
Clove takes this role without hesitation, without thinking of Cato's motives. It's pointless anyways, she knows. Now she'll be known for killing both the Girl on Fire and the almighty Cato, the favourite of the Games.
She's not complaining, and neither is he when he sees her tiny frame, so easily broken. So easy to kill. He only has to wait a little longer for her to be his.
They head to the feast, and Cato watches as Clove runs out with her knives ready to be flown through the air, ready to hit their target.
Clove sees Cato slinking through the trees, watching her, and her smirk gets a little bigger as she watches the big, bulky boy hide in the shadows.
You'll be mine soon, she thinks.
I will kill you.
.
She didn't know why she chose his name out of everyone there, but there's something in her stomach that feels a lot like hope when that giant boy from 11 grabs hold of her neck.
That hope is quickly diminished when Cato never comes, when the rock collides with her head. It wasn't there long enough for Clove to feel anything real, and she thinks that she imagined that hope.
Why would she be hoping for Cato anyways?
But the rock hurts and everything - breathing, feeling, seeing, existing - hurts.
Clove hates the little whimpering breaths that come out of her mouth - the mouth that was smirking with her catch mere minutes ago.
But then the sunlight is blocked, and she can barely make out the figure of Cato looming over her.
Cato was used to making orders.
Clove was used to disobeying them.
So when Cato asks her to stay (stay with me Clove, stay with me; don't you dare leave) Clove doesn't listen. Not like she had much of a choice.
Cato's not heartbroken, because that would require having a heart, but he's furious. She screamed his name, but when she screamed his name, it should have been a scream for mercy, not a scream for help.
It should have been her scream that only he could hear, that only he could cause. Her scream was not meant for anyone else, her red lips should be forming his name for mercy when he killed her.
Not like this.
She's not supposed to be screaming his name for help, she's not supposed to have this dent in her head. There should be a hole through her heart and his sword should be red with her blood, and her blood only.
He shouldn't be cradling her body (what was he doing holding her like that?) and she shouldn't be dying.
This isn't what he wanted.
I should have killed you.
.
Clove stares up at Cato's steel blue eyes once again, and the sound of his voice seeps through her broken ears and makes a sentence, a meaning.
He's begging her.
He wasn't supposed to be begging her like this, not for her to stay with him. Not for her to not die in his arms.
(but his arms are so comfortable, and his fingers are a gentle that she doesn't expect from him, not under the calluses and bruises and cuts from his sword.)
He was supposed to be begging her for mercy, begging her to let him go.
The pain in her head hurts too much to be thinking anymore, but her brain, though slow and sluggish, is still powering the last of her fury throughout her body.
He was supposed to be begging her for mercy, the desperation in his voice is supposed to be from the pain that her knives caused, not like this, not like this.
This isn't right, this isn't what she planned, not what she worked for. She's the best and she wasn't to be defeated by some boy with a rock and Cato's hands aren't supposed to be around her (she wants them to stop touching her, yet she wants them on her skin) and Cato's pleas are supposed to be while her knives cut patterns on his skin.
But the fury burns out, and Clove can feel the anger and the pain begin to ebb away, slowly.
She hates that the last thing she will ever see is Cato looming over her, his steel grey eyes in her vision, his deep pleas in her ears, his hands on her skin.
The nothing that she is, the nothing that she will ever be, the nothing that is all that she's ever felt washes over her for the last time.
In her broken, damaged mind, she forms one last thought that stays trapped in the chambers of her brain, replacing the message that was burned into her skull.
I could have killed you.
.
Clove's glassy eyes are staring up at Cato, empty and devoid of anything like they usually are.
But they're missing that spark; that spark of violence, that spark of malice, that spark of life that Cato never noticed before.
It's gone now. And so is she.
He's not grieving. But he's furious.
She was his to kill and no one else's. The blood on that rock belongs on his sword - she deserved the blade of his sword, so much like her own knives - not the dirty, worthless surface of a common rock.
Cato found him, found the worthless boy who killed his Clove, the girl who was his to kill, the boy who took what was his and no one took anything of Cato's.
And Cato killed the boy. He put up a fight, that much Cato gave him, but Cato was blind with anger, blind with the vision of Clove dead on the dirt from a hand that wasn't his own.
The boy was as broken in death. It wasn't the death that Cato had planned for Clove, though. That death was beautiful and majestic and glorious and now that death was taken away from him.
The injuries that boy gave Cato was nothing. Now that Clove was dead, now that the honour of killing her was gone, he only had one chance to regain honour and pride again - winning.
He set out, his sword coated with the blood that was not hers, his injuries made from a weapon that was not her knives.
And he was set to win.
I will kill for you.
.
He saw her again.
She was the first that he saw, with her luminescent green eyes and sharp teeth. The fur was as dark and soft as the tendrils of her brown hair, and he could recognize the sculpted legs, the muscles in the arms, the sharp curve of her jaw line.
They brought her back.
But as a mutt, ready to kill him. Her eyes weren't quite right, not as cutting as hers in life, not as soulless.
He was going to kill the lovers from 12 and she was going to help him, like they had planned.
Cato already had his hands wrapped around the boy's neck, and he was ready to throw him off to her, so that she could tear him to shreds.
(go on. I'm dead anyways)
He was as dead as her, as the rest of them.
(I always was, wasn't I?)
They both were. They were never really living. The need for the hunt, the thirst for blood, the want of death - they weren't ever living. Not when they were together and not when they were apart.
They didn't have feelings and they didn't have emotions or a heart.
Cato could still win, could still prove he was the best - he might be dead, but he could still win this, he could still win and still bring pride and still prove that he is the best.
But then he's flying over the side of the Cornucopia (x marks the spot) and he's on the same cold, hard ground as Clove when she died.
He could see her eyes looking at him, could see her teeth coming towards him.
She wanted to kill him.
But not like this, not like this. Clove wanted to kill him with her legs pinning him down, with her knives delicately carving him out. She wanted to kill Cato, and kill him with artful taste, with precision and with a smirk on those blood-red lips.
Not like this. Not with razor teeth ripping him out, not with frenzied eyes, not with fur in his mouth. This wasn't her, this wasn't her artful slices, this wasn't her careful cuts.
Not like an animal.
(what's wrong, Cato? She was always an animal, and so were you. What's so bad about it now? Having second thoughts about who you are? What you both are? You're an animal, and so is she.)
The pain that rips through his body is too much, too much, and he can't feel anything but the mutt-that-isn't-Clove's teeth going deeper and deeper into his system.
The cry that leaves his lips isn't human, it isn't anything - maybe it's all just in his head.
Out of the corner of his eyes he sees the girl from 12 and the pain is just shredding him apart until he's nothing but pain and agony and hurt and he sees the girl from 12 watching him suffer, watching him die.
His mouth forms a word that he's never used, a word that should have been for Clove's ears only.
(Say pretty please, Cato)
And before the arrow hits his skull, he sees Clove's green eyes in the mutt, and if he squints hard enough he can pretend that they belong to a human face.
And it's her face - or the illusion of her face - that is the last thing Cato ever sees.
I'm dead with you.
Thanks for reading!
Well, now I'm back after two (or more) months without any signs of life. Sorry! I hope this makes up for it? (not really. Sorry)
A Cato/Clove story! I've been wanting to do one for some time, since I love both Cato and Clove so much. They're so dysfunctional and insane and I just really love them. I'm not too sure if this would exactly be categorized as a Cato/Clove story, but oh well.
Also, I have no idea if this is a part of my 'challenge' (in which I write backstories for any Hunger Games character) or not, since this isn't really a backstory. But please feel free to submit any requests - I get much more motivated if I know there's someone out there who actually wants to read it enough to request it.
Which brings me to my next point - I'll try to be updating my other story as soon as possible, but I'm really not motivated (and I'm so sorry for anyone - if there is anyone - reading) so that story might be on a hiatus for a bit. I'm so sorry!
Last thing (sorry this A/N is so long) but it's really been a while since I've wrote some fanfiction so I'd like to know if there's anything I need to improve on or fix or anything like that. I feel like my writing is a bit off and different in this story from all my other stories, and I have no idea if it's a good thing or not. So any notes or pointers or criticism would be amazing.
Any questions? Comments? Suggestions? Feedback? Please feel free to leave it as a review!