It's been a while since I've published anything, but what else is new with me. This could be considered a sequel to my other Hunger Games fic by the name of Out of the Ordinary, but it can stand alone. I'm not entirely proud of this one as it is incredibly rough around the edges, but it's something. It felt like an angst sort of day.
Disclaimer: No
"So, Cato, you're officially the winner the winner of the 74th annual Hunger Games."
The Capitol crowd cheers and he beams at them like the media darling he was told to be.
"Yeah", Cato chuckles, "It's a honour really. Like being being entered into some superior club."
"Well you must be superior! You outlasted 23 other highly trained warriors. You earned that honour." Caesar Flickerman is playing it up like he does everything. It's really not all that special at this point. There's 73 others just like Cato who were all forced through the same scenarios and deal with the same issues both past and present. The crowd continues to cheer like this is a completely new experience for them.
73 others and yet not a single one to sympathize with.
"So what's your plan, Cato? For the future I mean. What should the nation be expecting from you? Some special girl waiting for you at home?" Flickerman's question all come to the light quickly. Luckily, they made him practice his answers. He has to seem desirable. Once the Capitol's got their eye on you, it doesn't leave.
Cato leaves back in his seat, keeping the same demeanour he had in his first interview. He has to be cocky. It's all that differs him from the 73 other jerks that won this. "Well there's the victory tour which should be fun. But after that, I don't know. You spend so much time preparing for this in my district that you don't really think about the after part. Maybe there's a girl back home. I don't know. I haven't had much time to look."
That's a lie. That's a dirty rotten lie and it eats him up from this inside. There's no other girl for him back home. The only girl for him is in a Capitol morgue, waiting to be brought home.
"I'm sure there are many Capitol girls that may suit your fancy. Any volunteers?" There's a cheer of a female brand, all of them willing to throw themselves at Cato. Inside, he can't bring himself to care. Outside, he stands up with arms open to invite them.
"I'll be sticking around the Capitol for a couple more days. There's always a chance." he calls out and he can see them swooning.
Unless one of them is Clove brought back from the dead, he doesn't care.
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They warn him about the nightmares after when he's getting ready for bed after a day of media attention. His mentor suggests sleeping pills as they make it hard to remember his brains wanderings in the morning. Cato shoves them away.
"There's no cameras in here. You don't have to be a tough guy with me." his mentor eyes him sternly. It's now that Cato realizes he still hasn't bothered to learn his name.
"I'm not being tough. I'm being honest." Cato pushes away the pills he's offered once again and his departing back is the only goodbye he gives his mentor.
Cato lays awake for a long while staring up at the blank ceiling. It's not pitch black like his bedroom is back home with the lights of the Capitol practically lighting up the entire room. He thinks a lot; about the Games and the things he's done. He thinks about that final stand on the Cornucopia, Lover Boy and The Girl on Fire standing up to him with all the stupidity of sheep. He recalls their agony as the dogs skin them alive and the cannon shoots twice. He remembers the artificial sun coming back up and being announced the winner.
Most of all, he remembers when he killed her.
It was out of mercy, he remind himself to keep his guilt at bay. Katniss screwed her up pretty badly with a knife attack in the woods on the way to the feast. She begged him to do it knowing that she no longer had any chance of winning. He was just granting a wish; like a husband granting his wife's last wish. Though they were hardly in any position to consider themselves married.
He can still her eyes tattooed onto the backs of his eyelids, wet with tears as the light was sucked out of them. His best friend in the whole entire world just gone before his eyes...
He sneaks out of his room to grab those sleeping pills. He's quiet so his nameless mentor doesn't hear him. Cato doesn't want him to be right.
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He takes a Capitol girl out to satisfy the masses. They're out to dinner at some fancy place he can't bring himself to care about. Her name is something that starts with an 'M', but she's as nameless to him as the rest of the Capitol is.
It's all for his image, really. He was told to look desirable so this is the plan that his mentor cooked up. He doesn't like it, but Cato generally hates anything that has to do with his public image.
The girl is yapping on about something, Cato isn't really sure what. He pays more attention to the sauce smears on his plate than he does to his date. Cameras flash as "subtle" paparazzi try to snap pictures of the "happy" couple.
Being a Victor is insufferable, really. At least if he was dead, he'd be in peace.
He'd be with Clove too. That would certainly be a plus.
This whole media thing would have been more fun if she had won with him. They'd be like they use to be; making fun of the extravagance of their surroundings and acting like themselves. The Capitol would have probably spawned theories about their relationship status and they would have been more than happy to prove them right.
Suddenly he's pulled into a kiss by the girl in front of him. She's pulled him in by the tie and gives him more tongue than lip. He tries to look into it, his hand moving into her bright pink up do and closing his eyes in pleasure. It's more of a chore to him.
He tries to pretend it's Clove, projecting the feel of her lips from that one night to this situation. But Clove would never kiss him like this. She'd kiss him like he's special unlike this girl who kisses him like he's some penny whore off the streets.
She finally releases him, eyeing him lustfully. He tries to emulate the same look despite knowing that he looks as fake as this girl's hair colour.
"Why don't we take this somewhere more private? Somewhere with less cameras." she whispers seductively.
He just wishes it was Clove taking him home.
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The train ride back to District 2 is quiet to say the least.
He's left to his own bearings which is nothing out of the ordinary. They give him a tablet as entertainment since he no longer has a partner to converse with. (Like they could replace Clove with a tablet.) He scrolls through news sites, but it's mostly quiet. He may have won the Games, but he certainly isn't special for doing it. The other districts are quiet except for his own, not bothering to celebrate the normalcy of a Career tribute winning.
He isn't really celebrating either.
It just makes him feel empty. He may have been full of crap during his interview with Flickerman, but there is one thing he can't lie about. He doesn't know where to go from here. There is no life or norm that he has to go back to. His whole life came and went with the competition. He has no purpose now outside of keeping the Capitol happy. He just feels really empty.
He plans to attend Clove's ceremony, if her family will have him. Despite her death being his fault, he does owe it to her to show some respect for her life. She happened to be a big part of his; she would probably do the same. He doesn't know when it is though and it feels awkward for him to ask her parents. Maybe he'll just visit her grave after. It's a good compromise.
Life is pretty boring without her. He never realized just how much of an impact she had on his day to day life. He never saw just how much she made him laugh or entertained him or pitied him and his boredom enough to participate in some flirty banter. He smiles to himself when he thinks of what she would say to him right now.
"I told you not to feel bad when you killed me. Yet here you are, sulking on your own. You are horrible at granting a dead girl's wish."
It's hard to grant a wish that makes it physically hard for him to breathe.
So he moves to one of the other cars on the train. It's so very empty with mentors here and there staring out the window and no other tributes moving about. It was more fun on the first ride to the Capitol where it was him, Marvel, Clove and Glimmer exploring the train like a group of kids.
The Games really know how to steal away such innocence.
Cato converses with his mentor when he finds him simply to pass the time. He finally learns that the guy's name is Salvatore and Cato puts it to heart for whenever he sees this guy again.
"Are you doing okay?" Salvatore asks.
Cato is leaning back in his arm chair with complete ease written all over his face. He acknowledges the question with a short nod.
"Are you sure? Cause I know that some other kids go through psychological traumas in the aftermath. And I know that the girl from your district meant something to you so I don't know if you miss her or something-"
"I'm fine." Cato interrupts. "I just can't wait to get home."
"None of us can. It'll be nice to finally have a life, at least for you. I'll just keep training young hopefuls like you." Salvatore likes to talk a lot, Cato notes. It's good for him since Cato isn't all that great at small talk. He's grateful for the lack of lull in conversation.
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His District welcomes him back when he gets to the train station, looking as excited as they do for all their other victors. However they are probably nothing compared to what District 12 would have been had Katniss or Lover Boy won.
He's just another card to brag about.
He chooses his house in the Victor' Village, the other residents welcoming him just as the district had. These are his people now. If anyone could understand him at this point, it's these people.
Clove would have begged to differ. No one can understand him like she did.
He requests some time alone, away from the media eye and the roars of his district. He's surprised that they grant it to him. They don't seem like the the kind of people to truly care about his well being.
He lies on his bed and stares at the blank walls like they could give him some peace of mind. He's tired of this media frenzy already even though it's barely been a week. He feels like he should be crying right now to fit some sort of stereotype. The big tough guy looks all strong for the people; but behind closed doors is really just morning his lost love, looking no less broken than any other Victor. The people are probably expecting a breakdown at some point. They're probably expecting him to break and burn things and punch out a couple of camera men. He wants to, more than anything right now. But that would involve giving them another show; playing into their hand once again. He's sick of being their puppet.
He has to wonder if any of this would have been different had he and Clove played the romance storyline like the 12 kids. Maybe they'd be okay with him wanting time alone; maybe they'd leave him alone.
Whatever Clove was to him during those Games is probably the only real thing that happened other than the killings. He wishes it was pretend. He wishes that he had never cared about her. He hates Katniss for making him kill her. He hates Effie for repeaing her when it was clearly a tie in Clove's race against some potential tribute. He hates the Capitol for these games that ruined his life. He hates Clove for leaving him like this.
He reaches for the vase on his bedside table and chuck it against the wall. It shatters completely and it's beyond satisfying for him. There's a few other trinket in his drawers that he also throws against the wall. Some of them don't break, but others add themselves to the pile of vase shards.
He does everything to trash his own room, screams of anger ripping from his mouth as he does so. Only once he runs out of things to break does he slide himself down the wall to the floor with tears streaming down his face.
His mentor finds him about an hour later and sees the state of his room. He spots Cato in the corner who has curled in on himself.
Like most real things about himself, it's kept out of the media.
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He visits his childhood room once him and Salvatore clean up his room. They didn't speak as they worked, but Salvatore doesn't have to say it for Cato to know exactly what he was thinking.
It was only a matter of time.
Surprisingly, they let him see his family. Salvatore fights the cameras that try to follow Cato in. For the first time, Cato is incredibly grateful for Salvatore.
His mother and sister meet him at the door, the ten year old running into his arms with a proud smile on her face. She's laughing in joy, giving him her congratulations. He looks over his sister's shoulders to meet his mom's eyes. Her mom looks at him like she can't believe that he's alive; like she's convinced he's going to erupt into dust at any moment.
His sister releases him so his can hug his mother. She hugs him so fiercely and he can hear short intakes of air that show she's holding back tears. He's doing the same.
"Welcome home, Cato." she whispers.
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His sister is upstairs putting the finishing touches on her welcome home present for her brother. Cato sits at the dining room table across from his mother.
"How were the Game?" she asks.
It's hard to answer that. It's not like school where he can just say "fine" and leave it at that.
"They were okay." he responded. She nods thoughtfully.
"I do wish you hadn't killed that Clove girl though. She seemed like a nice girl."
Cato shrugs. "I'm sure a lot of the other tributes were nice kids, mom. If we killed based on niceness, there probably wouldn't be as many dead tributes."
"She wasn't just a nice girl to you though, was she? She was your best friend."
"Well she's dead now. It doesn't matter what she was to me." he snaps.
"Just because she's dead, doesn't mean she is nothing to you."
He shakes his head and grows silent. It's an effective end to the conversation.
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When he falls asleep, he dreams of her.
It's painful to see her alive. She doesn't even talk to him in his dream, just looks at him. He tries to talk to her, talking about how horrible he is without her. She doesn't say a word, only looks at him.
When he wakes up, there are tears in his eyes and his cheeks are wet.
It's then that he realizes he badly he misses her. He realizes how empty he is without her.
He's just another Victor with an empty heart.
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