A/N: So I'm back! I know I've been super busy lately, but since I just sent the next chapter of Ichor to my beta (finally), I figured I'd treat myself by posting some of my other fics. I currently have three ready for publishing whenever I want and eight that I just need to proofread first, so I'm trying to space them out a bit. Also, the Burning House drabble series is in the process of being moved to a separate work, so I'll be removing that chapter in a little bit and posting it in a new story. I just thought I'd leave a little not-so-fluffy drabble here as a harbinger of the also not-so-fluffy works yet to come.

He's pretty sure he loves her.

Almost sure.

Maybe.

(She's sort of hard to love.)

Maybe it's the whole manipulation thing. That tends to put a damper on any relationship. And it's not like he hasn't ever doubted whether his feelings for her are conditioned or real. And it's not like he hasn't wondered when she'll grow tired of him and cast him aside like her favorite knife after the blade had bent beyond repair. And it's not like he hasn't considered that she's just using him for his admittedly impressive strength and connections.

But he loves her.

(Really.)

Yes, he knows how useful of a tool he is to her: the golden boy of District Two, beloved by the trainers, a formidable opponent who happens to be unable to hurt her. Glimmer had tried the same tactic when they first met, but she wasn't nearly as subtle as Clove had been so very long ago, and besides, he wasn't much for blondes. Still, Clove had dragged the other girl away by the wrist and had a furiously whispered discussion by the spears before finally letting her go. Glimmer had staggered away with a trace of fear in those brilliant green eyes, and Clove had laughed.

(It's sad, how he's come to believe that jealousy is comparable to love.)

Oh, but there's a flicker of something in her eyes when she sees the narrow glares he shoots Marvel whenever the other boy stands just a bit too close to Clove, something malicious and mocking and maybe even a little excited all at once. Jealousy isn't a one-way street, not for them.

She wears a blood-red dress for her interview, a sheet of fabric that clings to her hips and ends far too high up on her thigh, teasing with the prospect of sliding up just a little bit more. He feels a little dirty, watching her from backstage as he awaits his turn- she's fifteen, he reminds himself- but she wears it with her chin up like she's daring someone to comment on the scandalous dress that had been made for one of the usual eighteen-year-old volunteers from Two.

"You looked beautiful tonight," he tells her later, when they've returned to their apartments with their blood still boiling over the impossible love story Twelve had spun. He pauses, licks his lips nervously. He thinks of the fact that they'll be sprinting from platforms in just a few short hours, racing for weapons and supplies that will enable them to hunt, to kill. He thinks of the possibility that they'll die. "I love you."

(She doesn't say it back.)

The last thing she ever says to him as she lies broken in his arms with a dent in her skull is "You're pathetic. You'll never be a Victor. This is why I never loved you." The cannon fires, and he drops her corpse and staggers backward with sheer horror at her utter cruelty, relentless till the end.

(With her dying breath, she kills him, too.)

As he hacks away at the mutts below the Cornucopia, his hatred spurs him on. Oh, if only the mutt lunging at him with Clove's icy eyes was Clove back to life- he'd greet her with a kiss and a blade through the neck. He hates her, of that he's absolutely certain.

Almost.

Maybe.

He falters.

(She's got her nails hooked in his heart and rips.)