sweetheart.

The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend. ~Abraham Lincoln


The arena is beautiful, sure. But the Hunger Games are never just pretty. Hell disguised as Heaven, and anyone who thought that the fruit or water was actually safe wouldn't survive for much longer.

He's actually doing pretty good, for someone from District 12. (Granted, Maysilee's picture hasn't been in the sky yet, either.) And then his plan crumbles - kind of, as the Career about to slice his throat drops dead, a dart sticking out of his skull, and a girl emerges from the trees.

"We'd live longer with the two of us," she says.

"Guess you just proved that," he allows grudgingly. "Allies?" She nods, and he wonders, why him?

Hours later, as the sky turns a dark shade of indigo, she suggests they stop for the day. He's secretly glad, because his feet are surely blistered, and the gash on his arm from those deceptively fluffy squirrels is beginning to ache again.

The faces in the sky disappear, the anthem fades out, and they come to a realization. There's only one sleeping bag.

"We can share it," she suggests, but neither of them are too comfortable with that idea. So he offers that she take it, because he's fairly certain that if he didn't, his mother would kill him if the Games hadn't.

She rolls her eyes. "Don't try to be polite. I'll take the first watch, and you can sleep."

"You can barely keep your eyes open," he says, "Take it. We'll both get some rest for tomorrow." The words are startling, even to himself.

"Fine," she acquiesces, surprising him - he'd expected her to be more stubborn, at least - and grabbing the sleeping bag, starting to climb the nearest tree. For a moment he's irritated, because he'd kind of wanted her to argue back, and then maybe he would have ended up with it.

"Don't let the squirrels bite, sweetheart," he laughs.

A tree branch digs uncomfortably into his back, she lets out a sigh that might be directed at him, and he thinks that maybe he shouldn't have been so ridiculously chivalrous.