Scared and sweating, Peeta Mellark awoke with a start. As he let his eyes adjust to the light, he shaded his face and scanned the surrounding woodland. Nothing but the brightness had changed since he fell asleep. No other tributes in sight, no mutts, nothing. Thank fuck Peeta thought as he breathed a sigh of relief. Right now wasn't a good time for a fight when considering the two injured allies on the ground next to him that he had to take care of. Peeta let his gaze fall to the pair lying there, sleeping. On the left was the girl whom he had loved for as long as he could remember. Katniss Everdeen, his fellow district 12 tribute, had never looked more vulnerable. In the last fight the pair had landed themselves in, Katniss had taken a knife to her arm and was left sporting a deep gash oozing blood that Peeta had just about managed to stem the flow of with a couple of leaves and a small length of rope. He'd improvised the plaster/tourniquet combination in the middle of the battlefield because he'd already decided to give up his own life to save the girl. They both made it out of that particular fight but Peeta knew that there would only be one winner and it was going to be Katniss. He was forced to rethink his decision when the tribute on the right of the two injured teenagers had saved both Peeta and Katniss's lives. Cato was tall, handsome, strong and arrogant. Typical career basically. However, during the fight on the plain behind the cornucopia, Cato almost died trying to stop the rest of the careers from killing Peeta.

Peeta's parents ran the bakery back in 12 so he had grown up around the customers and came to know a few things about people in general. He was a good judge of character and was able to read most people like a book. But Cato was unreadable. There was something about him that made Peeta feel safe and another something that terrified him. The boy from 2 could easily destroy the baker's son, probably with his bare hands if he needed to, so why did he risk so much to save him? The stab wound in Cato's thigh was enough to show the physical repercussions of making such a choice but he was now target number one in the career camp too. Peeta just didn't understand it at all.

The fight had happened the day before. Darkness was already approaching when Katniss and Peeta were ambushed by the career pack on the strip of clearing between the shrubs in which they had set up their camp and the woods in which the pair hunted and collected berries. There was always the risk that they'd be seen in the twenty seconds it took to cross this piece of ground but they'd done it a dozen times before without being seen. This time though, halfway across the clearing, the pair ran almost directly into the career pack and Clove came within inches of detaching Katniss's left ear from her head with a throwing knife. The chaos that ensued went on for what seemed like hours. Clove, Marvel and Glimmer attacked the pair mercilessly and Marvel would have slashed Peeta's throat had it not been for Katniss's perfectly aimed arrow splitting his skill into two. The two girls however were much more aggressive and strategic than the dead boy from District 1 and were more than a match for Katniss and Peeta. After leaving the gash in Katniss's arm, Clove left her for dead and helped Glimmer to overpower Peeta and for the second time in an hour, Peeta faced having his jugular dissected. This time, it was Cato that came to the rescue. He came running from the woodland into the clearing behind the cornucopia, dripping blood from the side of his head and, instead of aiming the swing of his sword at Peeta, he took the blade the Glimmer and quite cleanly cut her in two. Clove fled, clearly confused, but not before planting a blade in the thigh of Cato. Cato's cry of pain coincided with a double cannon shot.

Peeta was in pain but of the three members of this new alliance, he was the least hurt. He forged the makeshift plaster from the rope and leaves, fixing it on Katniss's arm. The girl was conscious but barely. Cato stumbled over and helped Peeta to help her to her feet and the two moved off into the woodland propping her on their shoulders. Somewhere in the journey, Katniss fell into unconsciousness but Peeta could feel her pulse in the wrist that he gripped with his hand, holding her. They walked on, silent for over an hour. Three, four, five miles into the forest they walked before stopping to quit for the night. They set Katniss down in the soft moss on the ground and let her sleep. The two boys decided on a watch schedule and Peeta would go first. But when it came to the time that he agreed with Cato, Peeta couldn't bring himself to wake the boy. So he stayed awake himself and watched his surroundings. It was well into morning when he fell asleep.

As Peeta watched Cato stir, he knew that he couldn't kill the boy himself. There was something about him that radiated safety and beauty. The rise and fall of the perfectly formed chest in his sleep to the stretching yawns just before the boy woke showed Peeta that Cato was to wake up refreshed. As Cato's eyelids lifted, Peeta was overcome by just how innocent he looked. He was beautiful. As he lay there in the mud next to Katniss who still slept soundly, he lifted his gaze to meet Peeta's and a soft half-smile formed on his lips. A scar above Cato's eye caught the sunlight and the pink skin reflected it, almost giving the face an illuminated impression.

"Morning, baker boy"

The words rolled from his mouth effortlessly as if Cato was caressing each one with his tongue on the way out.

"I thought I told you to wake me up. Am I mistaken or are you as stupid as you are cute?"

Did Cato really say that? As Peeta stood there confused, Cato quite clearly licked his lips and broke into a grin as he brought himself to a standing position, not breaking eye contact once.

To say that Peeta was shocked was an understatement. What the hell was Cato doing, flirting? The thought seemed absurd for a brief moment and then, without his brain consenting to it, Peeta's lips flashed a smile and his cheeks turned pink. Cato obviously saw because his grin deepened and he cleared the five metre distance between the two of them in a second.

"What's wrong baker boy? Cat got your tongue?"

The tone that Cato said this in was a fairly amusing combination of affected innocence and pure deliberate seduction. Peeta tried his best to look away from Cato but there was nothing that he could do to stop himself staring. So instead, he admired the boy in front of him.

Cato stood just over six feet tall with rippling muscles all down his body. His arms were fully defined and his bare chest was perfectly formed and glistened with sweat in the intense sunlight. Each individual ripple of his six-pack was identical to the other five and for someone who looked as if he should be heavy and clumsy, he was remarkably agile. Cato's face was definitely his most definitive feature though. From the baby blue eyes that lay behind his dirty blond fringe to the perky, pink lips of his mouth, every single facial feature of Cato's could have been hand sculpted. He was a figure of beauty.

Cato watched as Peeta surveyed him, never looking away once. The two boys made eye contact again and once again, Peeta's eyes were greeted with a grin.

"So baker boy, what's our next move?"