Based on a prompt from kolms' the girl on fire ficathon on livejournal
Prompt: Cato/Clove - Victors!AU? Basically, any fic in life that gives them (even a semi-) happy ending and I will be building your temple.
Prompt by: xx_pinkstar
It's a trick.
As soon as they realize it they start running; running back to their camp just outside of the Cornucopia. They hear an explosion and run faster. Clove vaguely registers 1 (it's easier to think of them as numbers, although she would never admit this out loud) taking off in the opposite direction. She doesn't slow.
They break in to the clearing and they see it; the ball of fire that was their supplies. Damn it! she thinks, and runs faster. They approach their camp and Clove watches, as if in a daze as Cato screams at 4 and then snaps his neck.
They stare at the destruction that used to be their supplies, almost in disbelief. Gone, and not even a kill to show for it. Clove briefly wonders if perhaps they had been too cocky, but quickly banishes the thought from her mind. There's absolutely no room in her brain for anything other than the utmost confidence that she will make it home. It is what has been instilled in her for her entire life. Clove realizes that all they can do now is move on with what they have left.
Cato is not so easily placated.
"What the fuck happened?" He's pacing the perimeter of their booby trapped former supply hutch. "I knew we shouldn't have left that idiot in charge!" he seethes, gesturing to the lifeless body of the boy from 4.
He's still cursing 4 and whoever had the guts to cross them when Claudius Templesmith's voice booms across the arena. At first they're only half paying attention; congratulations on making it thus far, a feast at the Cornucopia (Clove is already planning her strategy), and then something catches their attention.
"A change in the rules," Claudius intones in his grating Capitol accent.
Clove smirks coldly. What rules?
"Two tributes may be crowned victors if they are the last two standing and they are from the same district. Good luck," he says cheerfully, "and may the odds be ever in your favor."
Clove turns to Cato and grins. His expression mirrors hers.
And they have an agreement.
Clove darts into the Cornucopia (she's faster, and Cato is keeping watch from the trees). She manages to pin 12 (the Girl on Fire, she thinks snidely) and maybe she was a bit too melodramatic, dragging it out longer than strictly necessary, but she hates this girl; this girl that had, by some miracle, beat her in the scores. She could practically see her brothers at home chortling about Clove being bested by a dirty coal miner. She could clearly envision the look of disappointment on her parent's faces, clicking their tongues in disapproval.
Clove was built for this, this girl was nothing. And she wanted everyone to see who was better, who was stronger, so there was no doubt in anyone's mind. First she opens her pack and snaps the syringe in half. No doubt medicine for Lover Boy. Just as she was tracing one of her knives along 12's lips, she's hauled backwards by a pair of dark, muscular arms. She's much too poised to let a scream escape her mouth, but it throws her, and she drops her knife.
Out of the corner of her eye she can see 12 dashing away. This makes her madder than almost anything in the Games yet. She almost had her!
She looks into the face of the monstrosity from 11. He's questioning her about Rue. She's ashamed to say she broke down, assuring him that it wasn't her who killed the girl, but he's not listening. He raises a rock above his head, and she can't move. His hand is at her throat, cutting off her oxygen supply until she can feel herself losing her grip on consciousness. She really wishes she could have killed the Girl on Fire before she died.
Then miraculously the hand at her throat loosens. She drops to the ground, heaving for air. She looks beside her to see the gargantuan body of 11, blood spilling out of his throat, his eyes still full of rage. She looks up to find Cato holding her dropped knife.
She glares at him.
"I had that under control." she grouses, trying and failing to preserve at least a shred of her dignity.
He snorts but doesn't reply. As they are running back to the woods, she is sure that she can hear her brothers laughing all the way from District 2.
That night three faces show up on the screen; the hulk from 11, Lover Boy, and the girl from 5 with the flaming hair. Clove doesn't know and doesn't care how she died, but she's glad; that girl was more cunning than Clove would like to admit. She's almost certain that she can take credit for 12's demise though (partial credit at least, Cato did deal the lethal blow), he must not have lasted another hour without his medicine. After all, Templesmith had said it was something each district needed badly.
She falls asleep smiling.
She's jolted awake by a scream in her ear. "Clove! Wake up!"
She jumps to her feet, instantly alert, and wondering why Cato sounds so alarmed. Surely the Girl on Fire would not cause him to sound so distressed. Sure she was good with a bow and arrow, Clove would grudgingly admit, but really, she didn't stand a chance against the both of them united.
"Muttations!" he screams, pulling at her arm.
Finally she understands and she's running. It's a good thing that she ran 10 miles every day since she was 12 as part of her training, because damn she was doing a lot of running in these Games.
Cato is trailing behind her. It's dark and she can barely see, but she's pretty sure they're running towards the Cornucopia, something to be grateful for at least.
They hit the clearing and she looks behind her. She has ample time to make it to the Cornucopia but the mutts are gaining on Cato. She runs faster. She reaches the Cornucopia and scales it quickly. She takes a look around; no sign of 12.
Cato is up beside her a second later, looking a little out of breath and a lot terrified. It's the first time she has ever seen fear on his face, and this alone scares her more than anything.
"Could have fucking sworn one of those things had Glim's eyes." he pants out.
She's amazed that he got close enough to notice such a thing, and writes off his claim as the ramblings of someone who just had a near death experience.
Before she can respond an almost inhuman cry of agony rips through the air. She whirls to her right where the sound came from. The Girl on Fire was not ten feet away from the Cornucopia, but that's as far as she was going to make it. The pack of mutts must have converged on her; they're now upon her on all sides. She fights futilely; flinging bows this way and that, never reaching their intended targets.
The mutts clamp down on her arms and tear them away from her body, effectively putting an end to her fighting and most likely and glimmer of hope she had left. She's now screaming for them to finish her, begging the Capitol to just please let her die.
Before Clove knows what she's doing she throws one of her knives with a practiced precision. It lands directly in her heart, right where she was aiming.
Clove justifies this to herself as wanting to be the one that got credit for killing her, not because she showed her any mercy. No, the Careers have been conditioned to show no mercy. At least this is the story she will tell her brothers when they ask.
The canon booms and a voice Clove has come to hate, but now is the most welcome sound in the world, sounds out.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present the victors of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games. Cato and Clove of District 2!"
Cato whoops and throws his sword up in the air. Clove takes advantage of his weaponless state. She dances over to him stealthily, pulling a knife out of her jacket as she goes. She spreads her arms wide under the pretense of going in for a hug. He's too overcome with joy to notice the knife she's hiding in her palm.
She races over to him, bowling him over. In one fluid motion, she sits on his chest and pins his arms with her feet, then presses the knife to his throat.
He gulps against her knife and she sadistically relishes in the feeling of power for a brief moment before she releases him and stands up.
"What the fuck, Clove?" he hisses. Is it wrong that the drop of blood on his throat turns her on?
She smiles at him malevolently. "Just wanted you to know who was in charge here."
She throws her knife down and it lands in the ground, inches from his head. She smiles innocently. "Let's go,"
And she walks to the hovercraft that has materialized seemingly out of nowhere, her back to him, without the slightest worry that he would take advantage of her vulnerable position. She climbs the ladder without a backward glance and sits down in the ridiculously padded seats. Cato is along a minute later and plops down next to her. He leans in close.
"You'll be paying for that later." he promises.
She smirks, imaging all the possibilities. "I was counting on it."