No One Mourns the Wicked

by HungerWho37

Despite being reaped, Peeta didn't want to give up. Yet, everything seemed to get in his way: Katniss, who he had sworn to protect; his mentor, who was a lousy alcoholic; and now Cato, the boy from District 2 who-for some bizarre reason-decided that Peeta was who he wanted to spend his final days with. Is it once a career, always a career? Does no one truly mourn the wicked?

16. Chapter 16

A/N: I'm hoping-but not promising-that I'll be able to be a bit more regular with updating this story. I wanted to get my second novel finished before I started getting into fanfiction again and that's where the past two years have gone. But now I'm finished, and I've found some time to return to here. I'm sorry it took two years. But I'm still here.

I do want to start the process of editing the first seven chapters of this story, because there is such a huge disparity between them and the following nine. I'll probably start copying and editing them out soon. Hopefully I'll be able to make them a bit better. I won't post the edits I'll have made until they're all done, so there may be some time before you notice a difference.

Anyway, I hope there's still someone around who remembers this silly old Peetato story. If there are, I do hope you enjoy it!

Chapter Sixteen

Actively hunting was different from when they had been wandering the woods during the lull. Cato was glad for this. The rest of the team were taking this seriously, and their silence was evidence of this. He had anticipated some back talk from somebody by now, particularly Anahita or Clove, and he didn't know how he planned to deal with it if it happened.

He felt like he was being divided into too many pieces. His body was present, but his mind was a million miles back, stuck in the events of the previous night. He couldn't stop reliving it, raking through that surge of fear he had felt, the crippling weight of the realisation that if he wanted to win then he would have to kill Peeta still bearing down on his brain.

Realisation wasn't the right word. Cato had known that in order to win then everyone else had to die. That was the core premise of The Hunger Games; the basic rules; the entire point of the situation they were in. Cato had just not thought about the fact that if he continued down this line of keeping Peeta safe then the outcome could result in only the two of them remaining. Then what?

Could he do it? Could he kill Peeta if it ensured his own victory? Why was he even debating this in his head anyway? As a kid, he drew pictures of trophies, stick figures on a stage where one had an absurd hair colour and the other wore a crown and held a sword. This was what he dreamed of; worked for; toiled for. What was he if not a Career?

Cato had met boys, slept with ones he had met at the Academy, but that had always been the extent of it. There had never been time for anything deeper than that. Everyone around him had always been so like himself. One note and that note was victory. Winning. Getting into The Hunger Games and gaining that glory for their District. If anyone had tried to tell Cato before he volunteered that he would be conflicted about killing someone to seal the deal of his victory because of a boy, he would have laughed. All those past boys would come to mind, all those fleeting faces which he now struggled to recall, and he would have laughed. He would probably have laughed so hard he would have doubled over, possibly even falling over in the process. The idea was so absurd, any Career worth their salt would have reacted in the same way.

Yet here it was. Or more accurately, there he was. Walking slightly ahead, wedged in the middle of the group. The source of all of Cato's confliction. The worst part was that Peeta wasn't trying to conflict him at all. He had been pretty open about how he expected to die, possibly at Cato's own hands. So why couldn't Cato himself see it happening?

There was something about Peeta that made Cato unsettled. Something about him that made Cato believe that Peeta wasn't supposed to die here. If asked, Cato wouldn't be able to explain himself. It could possibly be written off as part of the mess of confusing feelings he had been experiencing since they first walked into each other in the apartment complex. Maybe the crush-God, he hated that word-he had on Peeta was the reason for thinking this way.

Peeta was so different from all those other boys Cato had been with back home. He was emotionally intelligent; humble; perceptive and passionate. He didn't take shit from Cato, despite the very evident power imbalance. Fearless with a dose of recklessness. And God help him he was stunning. Those sharp blue eyes were going to be Cato's undoing. Whether they were narrowed in scepticism; wide with surprise; or glazed with exhaustion, they grabbed Cato in a chokehold and held him in place.

If they weren't in the Games and had run into each other in the streets of 2 or even after Cato's Victory, there was no doubt that Cato would have had him by now. It was all he had ever known since there was never time for dating or emotions. The cameras and the audience had gotten in the way and provided time for Cato to get to know Peeta in a way that he hadn't known any of the other boys he had wanted. And Cato hated that, because that was what had created the dilemma he was now posed with.

That didn't mean that Cato didn't wonder. Maybe if they did just get it over with and fucked each other, it would all fade away. Maybe all this confusion was just an extremely complicated case of blue balls. Maybe if he stole Peeta away to some quiet corner and had him against a tree or in a bush his mind would clear, and this would all end. He still couldn't quite imagine killing Peeta, but maybe it would give him the strength he needed to set him free.

It made him wonder if Peeta was a virgin. He had told Flickerman that there hadn't been anyone back home, but that didn't mean that there weren't exes from the past. There was also fire girl to contend with. But Peeta's announcement had clearly been the first time he had admitted that he liked her in that way, so they definitely hadn't done anything like that with each other yet.

A small, sick smirk curled onto Cato's face as he remembered that he was Peeta's first kiss. The first person to swallow his gasps; press him into the ground; taste the salt from his skin. The possessive part of him revelled in it, and the idea of dragging Peeta away to some secluded location and stealing that one last piece became more and more appealing the further they walked. In the small chance that Cato didn't make it then he would at least have ruined Peeta for anyone else. He would always have gotten there first.

The possibility of getting rid of his bewilderment while also getting a good fuck out of it at the same time was incredibly alluring.

Cato shook his head. God, what was wrong with him? It was barely the beginning of the Games and he was already losing his mind. He had been so busy plotting this convoluted plan where he'd drag Peeta behind a tree and have his way with him that he had completely forgotten one incredibly important ingredient in this recipe: Peeta's consent.

Careers had forced themselves on other tributes in the past. Sometimes they had even forced themselves on one of their own. Hell, it wasn't a Career exclusive thing either. Tributes from an array of Districts had done it over the past seventy-four years. But it didn't matter how desperate Cato was for some clarity and a simple solution to all his confliction, he wouldn't do that to Peeta. Hell, he wouldn't do it to anyone. He may have been a murderer, but he had some standards.

"You're staring."

Clove's voice shook Cato from his reverie. His fingers tightened around the handle of his sword, and he zoned in on the present. Nothing about their surroundings had changed, except for the silence having been broken. He looked down to her with a frown. "What?"

"You're staring," Clove repeated. "You're not paying attention. I can see it in your face."

"I'm paying plenty attention," Cato dismissed.

"No, you're not."

Cato shook his head. "What makes you so sure?"

"Your eyes have been glued to loverboy's arse for the last mile." Clove's voice was low enough that the rest of the pack who were ahead of them, including Peeta, didn't hear her. "At first I thought you were just being a bit of a perv, but your face took on this kind of mixture between constipation and elation, so I realised your head was somewhere else completely."

Now that he was back in reality, Cato realised that Clove was right. He was zoned in on Peeta's ass like he was trying to read something incredibly small written on the seat of his trousers. It wasn't the first time; Cato had been unabashedly raking the tribute from 12's body since he'd watched the reaping recaps that first night on the train. But the stupid clothes they had been given for the arena loaned too much to the imagination and the only purpose of staring would be to try to imagine what was underneath.

"You need to focus," Clove insisted. "You're the one in charge. All Loverboy has done since he got here is distract you."

"I'm not distracted."

"If you want to fuck him, just get it over with," Clove continued. "Do it when we return to camp tonight. It's not like he'd say no, I've seen him looking at you too. Maybe then you'll finally toss him back to his girlfriend."

The idea that Peeta had been looking at Cato in the same way Cato had been looking at him made him feel stupidly pleased. Emphasis on the word stupidly. This was the kind of shit that a person felt in High School, not in a life-or-death situation where one was trying to come out victorious. But the reminder of Katniss' existence in the equation dampened down the elation pretty damn quick.

"I don't want to fuck him, Clove."

"Yeah, and I'm the President's love child."

Cato knew how unconvincing he sounded. He wished things were different, and he wasn't as unfocused and confused. This was the opportunity not only he had been waiting for since he was a little boy, but also what Clove had been waiting for since she was a little girl. Sure, both would be gunning for the other's demise in order to win, but his moping over Peeta was making the experience incredibly taxing on his Academy partner. He had been training for this with Clove from day dot, yet he was letting a boy he had met a handful of days ago get in the way of that. What was wrong with him?

"I'm sorry, Clove."

Clove cringed. "Don't get sentimental on me. Just do what you've got to do to get your focus back."

"Hey, look." The group stopped when Marvel pointed his spear to the sky. A ton of smoke was pouring from the treetops in the distance.

"That couldn't be a campfire," Glimmer said. "Unless they've somehow started a forest fire."

"Would take a special kind of dumbass to start a forest fire," Anahita mused. "But that is a helluva lot of smoke."

"Someone is being smoked out," Cato concluded. He exchanged a look with Clove and smiled.

"Best catch them on the perimeter then," Clove grinned back.

The Gamemakers were possibly beginning to interfere. The Games were finally getting going again.

As the rest of the pack took off in the direction of the outpouring of smoke, Cato's gaze caught Peeta's. His smile faded as he recognised the look of despair on the smaller boy's face. They stared at each other for a moment, but the weight of Peeta's upset was too heavy to bear. Cato broke away and looked dead ahead. The Games were getting exciting for the first time since the Bloodbath, and Cato wasn't going to let Peeta's disapproval ruin the thrill of the hunt for him.

"Maybe we'll let you have your first kill," he said. It didn't take a genius to know that Peeta hadn't killed that girl that first night. Glimmer had shot a fatal blow; the girl had just been dying slowly. Cato had been so angry with Peeta that he had sent him to 'finish her off' when he knew rightly that she was a goner regardless. Peeta had returned far too quickly; not a drop of blood on him; his eyes regretful but not carrying the weight of a kill. No. That girl was Glimmer's kill.

Peeta didn't answer. He shook his head and followed the others. Cato took up the rear again. Now that things were getting interesting again, Cato was delighted for the potential distraction from his racing thoughts. He could focus on hunting; he could focus on killing. This was what he was good at.

Finally invigorated, Cato took a moment as they ran to appreciate the arse he had apparently been staring at for the last mile. Whenever this hunt was over, he was going to fix this Peeta dilemma once and for all.

The smoke thickened the closer they got to the epicentre of the fire. Eventually they had to stop by a stream, no longer able to see further than a few inches ahead. Cato mounted the tallest rock slope, but the vantage point provided no aid. This was definitely the work of the Gamemakers. There was something artificial in how the smoke invaded the nose and lungs. It burned, but it didn't taste right. It smelled like the smoke machines they used in the Academy during environmental training, except much thicker and darker.

"It's so fucking hot," Marvel complained from somewhere below.

"Of course, it's fucking hot, it's a fire dumbass," Anahita bit back before erupting into a coughing fit.

"We're at too much of a disadvantage here," Cato concluded. He jumped down from the rocks and felt his way back to the others. "We need to fall back to somewhere with better visibility. We'll catch whoever emerges from there."

"If anyone emerges," Glimmer unhelpfully added.

"Yes, thank you Glimmer."

"No, wait, don't!" Clove called. "It's clearing out over here!"

Cato went in the direction of Clove's voice. The closer he got, the thinner the smoke grew, and by the time he reached her, it was practically gone. She was stood pointing at a crevice beneath a rock. The smoke was being sucked away there, presumably through a hole or opening the Gamemakers had placed. Whatever it was, it was fumigating the air. Clearly, whatever role the fire and smoke had played was over.

The others arrived, coughing and spluttering. Everyone was bright pink and smudged with soot. Marvel had his jacket knotted around his waist while Glimmer's hung from her hand. Anahita's hair was plastered to her face and neck. Nobody was hurt. Despite his better judgement, Cato looked to Peeta. He tried to make it brief, just checking up on him the same way he had checked up on everyone else, but his gaze worked independently of his wishes and ended up lingering.

Peeta was the only one who had the sense to keep his jacket on. If they had encountered any fire, the extra layer would have protected the skin of his arms and hands. But now that it was clearing, he was shrugging it off and tying it round his waist. The black shirt that was normally a little loose around the stomach was glued to his body with sweat. Cato would have scolded himself for gawking during such a crucial time, if it hadn't been for what happened next.

Peeta froze. His hands were gripping his jacket arms so tight that his knuckles were turning white, and his eyes had gone so wide they looked like they were going to pop out of his head. At first, Cato had thought that Peeta had noticed him staring and was freaked out, but it only took a second for Cato to realise that Peeta was not looking at him. He was looking past him.

Cato turned, immediately believing a tribute was coming their way and Peeta had simply frozen in fear. In the first few moments, he saw nothing. Some smoke still swirled over the surface of the stream, like a fog drifting across a field on a cold Winter morning. Then, movement. A tiny ripple in the water, and two grey eyes peeping out from beneath a rock formation.

Cato grinned. It was probably the sickest, most dirty snarl to appear on his face since the Games began.

"Gotcha," he breathed.

"Cato, don't!" Cato felt Peeta's fingers brush the back of his coat as he jumped down the rock face. The rest of the pack had clearly noticed what he had, because Cato was quickly followed by hoots and hollers as they clamoured down the rocks after him.

Katniss Everdeen lunged out of the water like a startled bird, weighted down by saturation but still damn quick. She scrambled up the slope of the embankment and disappeared amongst the trees. Cato wasn't far behind her, his blood pounding in his ears as his boots punched the earth beneath his feet. This was it. This was his chance. If he got rid of her, got her out of the picture, then Peeta would be all his. He'd come up with another lie to keep Peeta around in the pack longer, and there would be no more indecision and disagreement. He would be able to kiss him and not have to worry about whether Peeta was worried about the girl on fire.

Because she would be dead.

Seeing Katniss scale the tree was mystifying. It was like she had turned part squirrel and shot up the trunk with the exact same speed as one. Shit.

Cato exhaled through his nostrils and started up after her. Climbing wasn't his strongest suit and it had been a while since he had practiced on an actual tree, but Katniss wasn't going to escape from them this easily. There was no way he could match her speed, he was far too heavy for that, but it wasn't like she was going to go anywhere. While having momentarily escaped, she had also essentially trapped herself.

Except, where he had known he was too heavy to match her speed, Cato had not realised that he was too heavy to climb the tree at all. But he learned pretty fast when he grabbed a branch and it snapped under his weight, sending him plummeting to the ground. Thankfully, he had not been high enough for such a fall to cause serious injury, but it had been high enough to steal the air from his lungs when he hit the ground. He inhaled and swallowed any exclamation of pain he felt bubbling up. Katniss was not going to see him show any kind of weakness.

"Oh, for the love of . . ." Glimmer loaded her bow and sent an arrow straight past where Katniss sat. It was close, but it still missed. Huffing with frustration, Glimmer loaded another arrow, this one lodging itself into the bark by her hand.

Katniss stared at the arrow for a moment before tugging it out of the tree. She waved it at them mockingly, and Cato wished for nothing more in that moment than a chainsaw to bring the whole fucking tree down.

Glimmer was loading another arrow when Clove gave her a shove. "You're wasting arrows," she hissed.

"Alright?" Katniss called down to them. She was grinning. What an insolent bitch. The only thing that gave Cato some joy was the fact that her hands were bright red and bleeding, and there seemed to be a massive hole burned into her trousers, which was also bleeding. She must have been in the middle of whatever cacophony of fire had produced that smoke storm.

"Alright," Cato repeated back to her stoically.

"Maybe you should throw the sword," Katniss told him. Her mocking tone nearly had Cato attempting to climb the tree again. He was going to tell her exactly what he planned to do to her with his sword, when Peeta spoke up.

"Just wait her out," he said. The five careers turned and stared at him. Peeta looked between them incredulously, as if the answer was obvious. "She has to come down at some point, it's that or starve to death." He shrugged. "We'll just kill her then."

It didn't sound like Peeta talking. Cato gave him a long glare, long after the others had reluctantly conceded that he was right. He waited for Peeta to give away what his game was, what his motive could possibly be, because this wasn't him. He had made it clear that he wasn't going to help them kill Katniss, so what was this about? Was it just to stop them lobbing weapons at her?

Peeta didn't hold his gaze long. He broke away very quickly, mumbling, "I'll start a fire."

Cato turned and looked up at Katniss again. She had shuffled back onto her branch so only the tip of her shoe was in sight. He grimaced and joined the others a short distance from the bottom of the tree. "Looks like we could be here a while," he told them.

"Where did you learn to shoot?" Anahita immediately started on Glimmer. "The Archery School for the Blind?"

"It's high up!" Glimmer protested. "And she moved!"

Anahita scoffed before then turning to Cato. "And what about you? Have you been sneaking dessert on the fly this entire time? That branch didn't stand a chance under your weight."

Cato rolled his eyes. Anahita's rage was doing nothing but causing him to deflate. "Are you finished?"

"I'm barely getting started," Anahita threw back, not bothered by his obvious exhaustion. "Fire Girl is one of our biggest threats and we've done nothing but make a fool of ourselves. Who are we that we can't even get one girl down from a tree?"

"I didn't see you offering any help or ideas," Clove muttered.

"Because I don't specialise in any skills that would get her down," Anahita snapped. "Can you strike her down with a knife?"

"I'm not risking losing another knife, or her gaining another weapon."

Anahita's mouth fell open. "Another weapon?"

Clove was unimpressed, knowing rightly that what she was about to say would possibly create an explosion but most definitely not caring. "I threw a knife at her at the Bloodbath, and she used her backpack to block it. The knife lodged and she ran away with it still attached."

Anahita raked her fingers through her hair, tugging on it when she reached the ends. "I can't believe this!"

"Look Ana, fire girl is hurt and tired," Marvel said. "She'll be hungry soon and will need water even sooner. If we play our cards right, she'll either die up in the tree or she'll be forced to come down and be killed by us. Loverboy was right. She's not going anywhere."

Anahita was very clearly still boiling. Cato understood her rage, for once, but he didn't like that she was taking it out on everyone else. Especially since she hadn't offered any help at all. She couldn't just stand back and watch and then get angry at them for not doing what she wanted them to do. Even Peeta, the last person anyone expected to do anything, had come up with something viable before Anahita did.

"We're probably going to be here all night," Cato said. "Anahita, make yourself useful and go back to camp. Tell Watt what's going on and bring back some supplies." He could see from the look in her eye what she was about to say and added, "If you kill Watt then I will return the favour."

"I can't believe we even left him there with all our stuff," Anahita said. "By the time I get there, he could have made off with everything."

"I doubt he would fit a cornucopia's worth of supplies in his arms," Cato reminded her. He kept glancing up at the tree, even though Katniss was yet to move since she settled. It felt wrong having his back to her, like she was going to ambush them with a secret weapon at any moment.

"I still don't trust him."

"Then you won't mind going back to see what he's doing and to get us some supplies for the night."

Anahita wasn't happy, but stiffly nodded. Cato nodded back, relieved that she was finally doing what she was told. The walk back to their original camp might calm her down some. Hell, Cato could use some of that himself, but he wasn't going to stray too far from the Katniss tree. He wasn't going to miss the opportunity to be the one to finish her off.

He watched Anahita's back as she walked away but frowned when she stopped and turned back around. "Don't kill Loverboy until I get back," she said. Cato must have looked stunned, because she narrowed her eyes. "We were only keeping him around to find his girlfriend. He served his purpose, if it even can be called that since we stumbled upon her by accident."

Cato didn't know what to tell her. He had been so focused on killing Katniss and the possibility of having Peeta to himself once she was dead that he had forgotten that Katniss was the whole reason that Peeta was in their pack in the first place. Now that they pretty much had her in their clutches and her death was inevitable unless a miracle happened, Peeta wasn't needed anymore.

"Let's focus on getting fire girl first," Clove cut in. "Loverboy is still proving useful right now. Once his girlfriend is out of the way, we'll decide what we do with him."

It wasn't clear why Clove had come to the rescue like that, especially since she was also annoyed by Peeta's presence because of how it was distracting Cato. So why had she stood up for him like that?

Anahita pinned Cato with a serious glare. "I won't be satisfied with anything but death."

Once she was gone, Cato released a long breath. He looked to Clove for explanation for her sudden defence of Peeta. She shrugged. "I wasn't wrong," she said. "He's proved himself useful. We could have spent all night throwing shit at her up in that tree."

"Does someone piss in Anahita's cereal every morning?" Marvel asked. "If so, could you please stop because she's becoming unbearable."

"She's just frustrated," Glimmer reluctantly admitted. She was staring intensely at the bow in her hands. "We all are."

"Don't let her get to you, Glim," Marvel said, taking the bow from her. "You missed a few times. Big fucking whoop. Anahita didn't do shit. At least you tried."

"He's right," Clove chimed in. "She's all mouth and no action."

Anahita was a complicated character and Cato didn't know how to straighten her out in his head. She was very much in the Games to win them, obviously, but she seemed to be better at giving off to people than getting her hands dirty. Cato didn't even know if she had killed anyone at the Bloodbath. If she had, he hadn't seen it, that was for certain. Maybe that was why she had wanted to be the leader instead of Cato. It was possible that she was better at giving orders and dressing people down rather than anything helpful.

"What are we going to do with Peeta once this is over?" Glimmer asked Cato. She pulled a face. "Are you really going to kill him?"

Cato couldn't decipher why she looked so . . . opposed to the idea. "Do you think I should?"

"It's not really my decision."

"Technically it is." Cato looked at the three of them. "It's all of our decisions. We're a pack, after all. Anahita has made her stance clear."

Marvel had begun sticking his spear into the ground and pulling it out again. He seemed to do that when he was uncomfortable. "I don't know . . ." he said. "Peeta seems cool enough. He seems to have more brains that all of us put together at times. I wouldn't mind considering him a proper member of the group until we all have to . . . y'know."

Glimmer shrugged. "I'm with Marvel."

"I don't like what he did to you," Clove made clear, "and I don't like how distracted you are when he's around."

"Are you siding with Anahita?" Cato asked.

"I don't know what I'm doing. I need more time to think it over."

Cato nodded. That was fair. It would be at least a day before Katniss started feeling the effects of being stuck up the tree anyway. Clove would have all that time to think. Hopefully, she would not side with Anahita by the end of it. Even if she did, it would be three against two, but both Clove and Anahita had such strong personalities that Cato didn't know if he would be able to stop them both if they decided they wanted Peeta dead.

Peeta returned not long after with some wood to start a fire. Unaware that he had been the subject of conversation shortly before his return, he started work on the campfire while the others settled in around it.

"Where is Anahita?" he asked.

"Getting some stuff from the cornucopia and letting Watt know what is going on," Glimmer explained.

"Do you think Watt will be alright on his own for the night?" Peeta frowned.

"Don't you trust him?"

"It's not that, I'm just worried he won't be able to look after himself. With the cornucopia wide open and Watt only starting to rebury the mines, he would be extremely exposed without someone there to protect him."

"If he dies, he dies," Clove said. She had her knives all laid out in front of her, in order of longest to shortest. Whether she was taking stock, trying to look intimidating or simply admiring them, even Cato wasn't entirely sure. "It's all part of the Game anyway."

"Still . . . maybe I should go back and see if he's okay."

"Running off now we've found your girlfriend?" Clove lifted her head and quirked an eyebrow at him.

"Not at all, I'm just concerned about him."

"Watt will be fine," Cato intercepted. "You need to stay here, Peeta."

Cato mostly wasn't keen on the idea of Peeta crossing paths with Anahita and the pair of them being alone together. Anahita would most definitely kill him and claim there had been an accident. There was also a small part of Cato that was worried that Peeta was planning on running away too. Nobody was going anywhere, not until Katniss was taken care of. Once Anahita returned, everyone was going to stay put.

Peeta had yet to look up at Katniss in the tree, Cato noticed. He seemed to be busying himself, so he was doing anything but being tempted to look. She still hadn't moved much, only small shifts here and there, but her very presence unnerved Cato in ways he wasn't at all happy with. She was one girl. How could she have him so on edge? Was it something to do with whatever mystery trick she had done to earn herself that eleven? It was entirely possible that she had climbed around the training centre just like she had climbed up that tree, but it didn't seem likely. It didn't matter how fast or lithe she was. Climbing alone wasn't eleven worthy.

Temptation to ask Peeta rose within Cato once more. If he asked in front of the others, the pressure would possibly make him answer. But then again, Peeta wasn't the sort of person who bowed to pressure. If he had been that sort of person, then he would have told Cato that night on the roof when he screamed in his face.

Cato cringed. He had been so angry that night. He hadn't been the only one. Clove had been mortified and when they met up with the rest of the pack the next day, they too had felt duped. How could some girl from 12 beat the scores of the entire pack? How could some girl from 12 get the highest score out of the entire tribute set for that year? How could some girl from 12, who had no training or preparation for what was coming, manage to beat them all?

His rage had gone straight to his chest, and he had told Clove that he was going to find out what she did to get that score. And thus, he had gone to the roof with the intention to get the information from Peeta, even if he had to force it from him. This was what his entire life had been building up to, this was what he had spent every waking minute dreaming and preparing for, and yet some girl who hadn't even wanted to volunteer but had her hand forced had bested him?

But Peeta didn't take his shit. Sure, Cato had probably scared the shit out of him that night, but he hadn't bent to his demands just because he was bigger than him and he was screaming. It was very possible that Cato may have stood a better chance if he hadn't gotten so mad. If he had just asked, had just thrown the question into conversation causally, then Peeta may have answered. Cato wished that that had been his approach. He wished he could go back and smack himself, tell himself to wise the hell up and remember that Peeta wasn't the person he was angry with, it was fire girl.

"You're not going to be able to knock her from the tree with your mind," Clove suddenly said.

Cato realised he had been staring at the branch that Katniss was hidden on top of. When he went into these reveries, he went into staring trances. "Worth a shot," he muttered.

"Do you think the fire was for her?" Glimmer asked.

"What do you mean 'for her'?" Marvel frowned.

"Well, by the looks of her hands and clothes, she was in the epicentre of the fire. You don't get to be in the epicentre unless the Gamemakers want you there."

Cato considered this possibility. He wondered what Katniss had been doing to cause the Gamemakers to throw the forest into flames around her. Maybe they were sick of her too. Maybe they knew the Capitol citizens weren't going to shut up about that dumb fire dress for the next decade, so they were trying to snuff her out before she made them any more annoying. It was what he would do, if he was a Gamemaker.

"It's obvious they were pushing her towards us," Clove rubbed one of her knives with the sleeve of her jacket before elaborating. "The smoke started to clear once we were in the vicinity of her."

"Why her? Why toward us?" Glimmer frowned.

"Could be any reason," Clove answered. "Things might have gotten boring; we might have been the closest to each other and they decided to give us a push; or they want to milk the soap opera for all its worth."

"The soap opera?"

"C'mon Glimmer," Clove chastised, rolling her eyes. "This is a television show. The Capitol aren't just watching for the killing, they're watching for the drama. They eat that shit up. Their teeth must be rotting on whatever love-triangle-but-not bullshit that's going on right now."

Clove fixed Cato with a look, and he stared back at her. He didn't know what she wanted from him. This hadn't been his intention. Not at all. Back at the tribute centre, Cato had been so convinced that he was pursuing Peeta purely for the fact that Peeta was hot, and Cato was desperate. The fact that they both might not have too long left to live meant that he needed to grab the chance to have what he wanted before it was too late. All the stuff that had happened in between; the talking and the emotions and gooey shit . . . None of that was supposed to happen. And then Katniss got inserted into it and everything just got ten times more complicated.

"They probably pushed us all together so the audience can enjoy the drama of Cato slicing open his boyfriend's girlfriend," Clove continued. "And all the tension they expect it'll cause."

"Katniss isn't my girlfriend," Peeta said quietly.

"Oh, so if she comes down from the tree, you'll do the honours?" Clove held a knife out to Peeta across the fire, as casually as someone would pass a spoon over a dinner table.

Peeta stared at the knife with a fixated frown. When he looked away again, like he couldn't stand the sight of the weapon, Clove flipped the knife in a circle and caught it again. "Thought so," she said.

"That doesn't mean that she's his girlfriend," Cato reasoned. "Some people just don't like to kill like we do. You must remember 12 isn't like 2, or 1 or 4."

"I know you'd like to think that Cato," Clove said. She looked at him again, and her gaze was so weighted that Cato felt the urge to look away from her in the same way Peeta had looked away from the knife. "I hardly care. Whatever the Gamemakers reasons were, it brought us to her. She's our biggest threat, whether she's Loverboy's girlfriend or not."

Cato wanted to be annoyed with Clove for being so spiteful, but he couldn't blame her. This entire situation was overshadowing what was supposed to be their path toward victory. He hoped that once Katniss was out of the way then things would get easier, but he wasn't entirely sure if they would. Peeta would still be there, posing a problem simply by existing. There would be Anahita to deal with, and possibly even Clove if she decided that Peeta was more of a distraction than a benefit to the pack. And also Peeta himself, because Cato didn't entertain the idea that Peeta wouldn't be unhappy with Katniss' death. Maybe unhappy enough to be difficult or leave.

If he left, would Cato let him go?

Could he let him go?

Anahita re-emerged, nearly tossing the bag she'd packed into the fire with the amount of care she put into the direction she was throwing it in. She looked up at Katniss, fists on her hips as she analysed the girl in the tree carefully. "Any movement?"

"No," Marvel answered. "Whatever happened to her in the fire has probably made movement difficult."

"She climbed that tree with scalded hands," Glimmer mentioned, admiration evident in her voice. "And she was still so fast."

"So what?" Anahita scowled. "Anyone can climb a tree." She looked at Cato and rolled her eyes. "Nearly anyone."

"Go on then," Marvel said, sweeping his arm in a wide gesture. "Nobody's stopping you."

Anahita shook her head. "It's getting too dark," she muttered. How did she always have an answer? Did she have some sort of memory bank of pissy responses to throw back at people when they nearly caught her out?

"Can't wait for your morning demonstration then," Clove muttered.

The scowl was yet to leave Anahita's face but then, Cato sometimes wondered if that was just how her face naturally rested. It was rarer to see Anahita with a neutral expression opposed to a bitchy one. Cato had heard of resting bitch face before, but Anahita somehow took it to a new level.

"I don't have to prove myself to anyone," Anahita snapped. "Especially not to some fire slut who probably sucked Seneca Crane's dick to get that eleven."

Peeta's head snapped up and his face was overwritten with shock. "That's not what happened!" he exclaimed.

"The way you both were dressed the same and were attached to each other's hips during training, I wouldn't be surprised if you did it too," Anahita told him. "It's not normal for a 12 to get an eight either."

"Don't be stupid, Anahita," Peeta snapped at her. "I could say the same thing about you since all you seem to do is be ignorant and rude to everyone around you. But I don't, because I'm not an asshole."

Anahita sniffed and sat herself down in an empty spot by the fire. She seemed perfectly unbothered by Peeta throwing her shit back at her, but Cato wasn't comforted by this. He knew full and well that she struggled to see worth in Peeta's existence or his presence as a member of their pack, never mind anything he had to say. Her indifference was just as unsettling as it would have been if she'd thrown a punch at him.

"I'm sure you got plenty of practice in with Cato before the big performance at your one-on-one," she said.

"Anahita!" Cato shouted as loud as he dared. Last thing they needed was Katniss hearing them bickering. She needed to believe they were a complete threat, not a bunch of children huddled beneath a tree arguing with one another. "Have some decorum for the love of God."

"What? Like the decorum you and Loverboy had when you were rolling around sucking face in your tent?" Anahita flatly responded.

"I can't emphasize how much that isn't your business," Cato snapped back.

"Must you always pick fights where-ever you go, Anahita?" Glimmer asked tiredly.

"I don't understand what you guys expect of me," Anahita said seriously. "To start being nice? Risk starting to like you guys? You're a bunch of idiots if you think that's smart. Playing best of friends won't help you when we have to kill each other. Cato's shot himself in the foot with all this boyfriend roleplaying." When she fixed her eyes on Cato this time, her gaze wasn't vindictive or cruel. It was pitying. "You won't be able to kill him, and you'll lose because of it."

Her words made Cato feel ill. She was right. How could someone so nasty and blunt, someone who was usually so wrong, be so right?

"Hence why I should do it." Anahita's hand glinted, but she didn't make any moves with the machete she carried around. "Because I can do it, and I won't feel a hint of guilt about it either."

It seemed that they had gotten to a point where Peeta's death was discussed so openly that Peeta himself didn't look at all perturbed by Anahita's words. Acknowledging your possible death was essential for being in the Games but having someone sitting right beside you with a weapon openly saying they'd do it and not feel any remorse, should have been concerning. But Peeta watched Anahita apathetically, his eyes not even on the weapon but instead watching her face.

"Put it down Anahita," Cato said firmly.

Anahita shrugged. Maybe she had an epiphany on her journey to and from the cornucopia; decided that being angry about whether or not they killed Peeta was a waste of her energy. That would be nice, at least it would be one less thing to worry about.

But then she turned to Peeta and said something that stunned the entire group. "I hope you can live with the fact that you've killed Cato," she said.

It was said so simply, like it had already happened, despite Cato sitting there, alive and breathing and watching them. Nobody had killed him, especially not Peeta, but the implication behind Anahita's words was obvious: Your very presence here, your very existence, has posed enough confusion for Cato that he will not be able to kill you and, thus, you have killed him. Because you both can't survive this. I hope you can live with that.

Say what you will about Anahita, but she was smart enough to quickly figure out what would push a person's buttons the easiest. She had been doing it to Cato since they met at the tribute centre. It had only been a matter of time before she discovered what it was that would get through to Peeta the fastest.

"Nobody has killed anyone," Marvel cut in, trying to take back the weight of Anahita's implication.

"Well, that's just factually inaccurate," Anahita replied.

"Peeta, don't listen to her, yeah?" Glimmer touched Peeta's arm, but he didn't react to her. "She's trying to get a rise out of you."

Cato wanted to push them all out of the way and pull Peeta into his arms. The boy from 12 was staring into the fire with an intense expression. His eyebrows were pulled downward, his lips set into a line. The flames glittered against his iris, blue on orange, like the sun setting beyond the ocean.

"Peeta," Cato said. Peeta didn't look at him. "I'm not dead. You haven't killed me."

Peeta shook his head. "I need to step away."

Without saying anything else, he got up and walked away from the fire. He disappeared into the forest and Cato immediately stood up, knowing in his gut that he couldn't leave Peeta out there on his own. It was too dangerous. He didn't think that Peeta would stray far, but even being out of the eye line of an ally was far enough to become a target.

"Don't go too far!" Anahita called after Cato as he set off to follow Peeta.

"You're such a bitch, Anahita," Cato heard Glimmer say as he ignored her and continued in the direction Peeta left in.

"Peeta," Cato called after him. He wasn't worried about drawing more tributes towards them, he was capable of cutting through them if they got in the way. Besides, only stupid tributes would attempt to ambush him with his pack so close by. Unless Katniss decided to suddenly drop from the tree and attack, they were fine. "Peeta, wait, you can't stray too far!"

Peeta stopped and spun around. He wasn't hard to read right now. How Anahita had disturbed him was written all over his face. Cato remembered the tears that had freely fallen from Peeta's face when he had been reaped, how he had not worried about the country seeing him cry. Clove had figured he was pulling a Johanna Mason, trying to seem small and weak so he'd be underestimated. Cato had assumed the same. But then he got to know Peeta and the kind of man he was. Peeta wore his heart on his sleeve and, unfortunately, that exposed his emotions far too easily sometimes.

"You know, where I come from you guys are terrifying," Peeta said. "Careers are these terrifying, trained, torturous bastards who take pleasure in the Games and fall over each other to be reaped. Everyone who is not one of you is afraid of you, afraid of how someone so young can be so easily manipulated into loving taking someone else's life. But coming into these Games and getting to know you and Glimmer and Marvel and Clove, I can see more nuance than that. It's not as black and white as that, it can't be."

Cato could imagine the type of fear his kind struck in the other tributes. There was a time where he would have thrived in the knowledge. The idea that he had people so completely and utterly scared of him would have given him such a thrill it would have bordered on pleasurable. But the look on Peeta's face as he spoke, how his words wove the picture of not only himself but others being terrified of him, it didn't hit the same way it used to.

"But her," Peeta pointed back over Cato's shoulder, his hand shaking, "I don't know what sort of act she's putting on, or whether that's truly who she is, but she has done nothing but enforce the stereotype that surrounds her."

"You can't let her get to you," Cato uselessly said. It was hypocritical of him to even suggest such a thing since he had been butting heads with Anahita since the beginning. The very first morning they'd spent in the arena he had to leave and punch trees because of how badly she had gotten to him.

"I want to see the good in her," Peeta pressed, his hand still shaking. "I see humanity in everyone in this arena. It's why I couldn't let you kill Watt; and why I have a deeper respect for Glimmer than anyone watching right now or even the tributes who have only seen her interviews will ever understand; it's why I didn't lash out at Clove for having the audacity to pass that knife to me. But Anahita? I don't understand her. I can't."

"Some people just aren't to be understood," Cato reasoned. "They're too complex."

"Anahita is about as complex as my stylists were," Peeta deadpanned.

Cato almost laughed at that. If Peeta's stylists were anything like his had been then Anahita had just been dealt an extremely harsh blow.

"She wants to win," Cato said.

"Yeah, don't we all? It hasn't turned Glimmer into an asshole, nor has it turned Marvel into one. You guys have your faults, but my god is human decency so difficult to ask for?" Peeta threw back.

It was hard not to notice that Peeta hadn't included Cato himself in that assessment. He wasn't surprised. He could be a total dickbag at times, especially where it concerned Peeta, and definitely where it concerned Katniss' relation to him. The night on the roof after the tribute scoring pretty much branded Cato with asshole status for the rest of his life.

"Don't give her the satisfaction," Cato insisted. He tried to get closer to Peeta, but Peeta stepped back, still too riled up by what Anahita had said to let him near. It stung a little bit, but Cato didn't show it on his face. "She's just throwing out whatever she thinks is going to annoy you. She knows rightly Katniss didn't suck anyone's cock, let alone Seneca Crane's; nor does she think you did either. She knows for a fact that you haven't killed me too. I mean, fuck, I'm standing here right now, aren't I?"

Peeta stared, his chest heaving. He wasn't short of breath, nor was he exhausted. His frustration was causing him to pant. It was possible that he had kept his mouth shut and held back during all the poking and prodding he'd gotten since being forced into the group for too long and now it was bursting forth and was affecting him physically as well as emotionally.

"You know what the worst part is?" Peeta said.

"What?"

Peeta's eyes glittered, and Cato internally swore, not having noticed that he was on the verge of crying until that very moment. Seeing those tears brimming in his eyes made Cato realise just how weak he truly was for his man, because all he wanted to do was wipe them away and make the source of his pain disappear.

"She's absolutely right."

Cato frowned. "Peeta, I'm not dead."

"Cato, look where you are right now." Peeta threw his arms out around him. "You ditched your pack to come after me, because one of your own said some mean words that got to me. You're their leader, Cato."

"They can look after themselves, Peeta, you c"-

"Cato," Peeta's voice was stern, low enough to make Cato stop talking midsentence. Not many could say they could get him to do that. "I am distracting you. Your priority should be your pack, your people, your victory. My very presence here is creating a diversion I never intended. I know it's my fault. I created the rage that made you force me into the pack, and I will never be able to make up for what I did to you. But if we keep going down this path then it's quite possible that the diversion I didn't mean to create is going to force you into a situation that could result in your death, and I can't bear that weight."

"Peeta, I am my own responsibility. I am capable of looking after both myself and you, and I fully intend to do so," Cato said. "Yeah, you made me angry, but you didn't force me to do anything I didn't already plan to do. I was going to make you join the pack for protection before the Katniss confession. We'd be in the exact same place regardless of what you said or did. You didn't cause this alone."

"But I still helped cause it, Cato," Peeta pressed. "I can't be so important to you that you're willing to throw away what I'm sure you've been dreaming of since you were a boy."

There it was. The dilemma Cato had been battling. What was it about Peeta that had made Cato so sure that he was worth protecting? What was it about him that made throwing away all his dreams and beliefs about his life as a Career feel worth it? What made him so different?

"Maybe you need to let me go, Cato," Peeta said, his voice quiet but just loud enough to be heard.

No, no, no. Cato knew this was going to come up, but not so soon. Before now, he had been able to push all this off. Until they found Katniss; until Clove made her decision; until the pack turned on each other. There had always been a reason to avoid it. Now that Peeta was making the decision himself, there weren't any means of pushing it away.

"You can't." It was a statement, not a suggestion.

"You can't tell me what to do, Cato."

"But you're not doing this of your own choice, Anahita has just gotten into your head."

Peeta looked offended. "I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions. Just because Anahita said some things doesn't mean this hasn't been something I've been ruminating on for a while."

Cato shook his head. "If you think I'm going to let you up and leave then you've got another thing coming. You're not just wandering off into the wilderness where death could find you anywhere! Look what the Gamemakers did to Katniss! What if they do that to you?"

"That's what the Games are all about," Peeta laughed humourlessly. "I'm sure it'll make quite the show."

"Don't talk about your death like that," Cato snapped.

"Please get in touch with reality, Cato," Peeta said. He almost sounded like he was begging. "I'm not surviving this. I said as much before we even entered the arena." He pulled a face. "Katniss kept insisting that I'm strong, that I can grapple and wrestle if it came down to it. But she didn't get it, and you don't seem to either. I'm not surviving this. End of story."

Katniss had told Peeta he had a chance of winning? Why did Cato find that so surprising? Peeta had mentioned that Katniss had told Haymitch that he could throw a sack of flour over his head, but Cato hadn't imagined it in the sense of convincing Peeta he could win. Cato had built such a bitchy, enraged version of Katniss in his head, spawned from envy and anger, that he hadn't imagined her being nice in anyway.

"My mother doesn't expect me to come home, Cato," Peeta said. "If my own mother can come to terms with that then so can you."

Cato was alarmed by this admission. "Hold on, what do you mean?"

Peeta waved him off. "I know for a fact that we both came to the same conclusion last night. I felt it in the tension in your body when you swept me behind you. You and I realised at the exact same time that in order to survive, the other must die. And I could see on your face what that realisation was doing to you. If I leave now, I will die some other way. You won't have to worry about having to do it yourself."

"Peeta, stop talking about dying like that, please"-

"Or what, exactly?" Peeta challenged. He reached out and took Cato's hands. "Can't you see that this is the problem? You won't accept that I'm going to die. You can't accept that I'm going to be killed. My dying is inevitable. But you? You stand a chance. I'm getting in the way of that. I don't know what it is that has possessed you to be so worried about me of all people, I'm not anyone important, but you need to get over it. And me getting out of your way is the only way for that to happen."

Not anyone important? What the hell was he talking about? What exactly went on in District 12 that had Peeta so convinced of his unworthiness? Cato tightened his grip so that Peeta couldn't let go of his hands, yanking him forwards so that their faces were inches apart.

"Do you think I am so frivolous that I would waste my time on someone I didn't think was worth it?" he asked in a low voice.

"Probably not," Peeta answered defiantly, "but that doesn't mean I quite understand why you've chosen me to concern yourself with. You can't possibly be willing to detriment yourself over a crush."

"You're more than a crush." Cato was practically growling. He couldn't help it. Anahita's careless words; Peeta's dismissal of his own worth; his frustration over his own feelings and behaviours . . . It was all binding together and pulling his animalistic side out. He wanted, practically needed, Peeta to believe him.

"You said as much when we first spoke, Cato. You said that you were acting quickly because there wasn't a lot of time, and we didn't know how much longer we'd be alive for. Somehow, between then and now you seem to have forgotten that," Peeta insisted.

"Because I got to know you," Cato answered.

"I messed with your emotions, Cato," Peeta threw back. "You should have struck me down that first night because of what I did to you. Then you should have struck me down even harder when I admitted I wasn't leading you to Katniss. The Cato who volunteered at his reaping would have done it. Doesn't that tell you something? Doesn't that show you that I'm getting in the way? You. Need. To. Let. Me. Go."

"Maybe I don't want to be the Cato who volunteered anymore," Cato hissed. "Maybe I want to be different. Maybe I let you get in the way and change me."

Peeta was visibly saddened by this. "And in any circumstance besides this one, I would have welcomed that with open arms," he said. "But we're in The Hunger Games. The Cato who is going to win is the Cato who volunteered, and I need to get out of here so that you can get back to being that guy. I can't have the weight of your death on my conscious, Cato. I just can't."

"The only way my death would be on your conscious would be if you did it yourself." Cato drew his sword and lifted the blade between their joined hands. The point separated their faces, such a seemingly small part of the weapon capable of such mass devastation. "Unless you drive this into my heart where we stand, my death has nothing to do with you."

Peeta surprised Cato by grasping the hand that held the sword's hilt and jerking it closer to himself, so the point pressed beneath his chin. The sharp tip pressed into the soft flesh, pushing into the skin that was faintly bruised from Cato's kissing the previous night. "Maybe you should just kill me now," he said. "I won't survive anyway. If you're so worried about someone killing me out in the wild, maybe you should just do it and get it over with. At least you won't prolong it."

"Don't be stupid, Peeta." Cato tried to pull his hand away, but Peeta was exerting that eight-worthy strength to hold him there. He kept pulling, but all they were achieving was a bizarre tug of war that caused the sword to tremble between them, not moving from beneath Peeta's chin.

"I can't overstate how tired I am, Cato," Peeta said, barely moving his mouth as he spoke so he didn't impale himself. His eyes portrayed that exhaustion clearly, those blue eyes Cato loved so dearly heavy with the type of fatigue a quick nap couldn't fix. "I'm a pawn in everyone else's game but never in control of my own."

What did he mean by that? Did he mean the Capitol's game? The Gamemakers? They were only one entity. Who was 'everyone else' and why did Peeta feel like a chip in their games?

Cato managed to wretch the sword away from Peeta, quickly pushing him against a tree before he could make a move to grab it back. Peeta hit the trunk like a ragdoll, glaring at Cato with disdain but not rage, like he had known all along that Cato wouldn't stab him no matter what he said to him. Obviously, Cato wasn't going to stab him. He may have been conflicted and baffled by whatever was going on in his head and heart that was allowing him to be changed by Peeta, but he wasn't going to kill him for it. Yes, there was a version of Cato that would have, but the present Cato didn't know where that part of himself went. He didn't know if he wanted it back, either.

"I'm not going to kill you over some dumb words Anahita said!" Cato snapped. He kept his hand in the middle of Peeta's chest, keeping him pressed against the tree until he stopped with his nonsense. "You may believe that you don't stand a chance; or that your death is inevitable; and you can do the holy martyr 'just kill me' act until the sky falls; but there's something you didn't factor into this equation, and that's me. I think you stand a chance. I don't believe your death is inevitable. And I'll be fucked if I let you pull any sort of just kill me act while I'm around."

"But you shouldn't feel this way about me!" Peeta shouted. "You're putting your own victory at risk!"

"Well, maybe I want to!" Cato wasn't wholly sure about that yet, but he certainly wasn't going to let Peeta justify his line of thinking this way.

Peeta rolled his eyes, exasperated that Cato wasn't understanding at all. "And not being victorious means death, Cato. In putting your victory at risk you're putting your life at risk and you're doing it for me for some bizarre reason! Anahita is right, don't you see? I'm killing you!"

Cato's head was spinning, wrung out with the mental gymnastics the pair of them were performing in order to have such an argument. "Why can't we just enjoy the time we have together while we have it?" he asked gently.

"Because one of us is going to die," Peeta simply said.

Cato looked at the ground, discouraged and irate. This wasn't fair. It wasn't fair, it wasn't fair, it wasn't fair. "Maybe we'll both die," he said. "We can be each other's demise."

Peeta didn't answer, but Cato could feel his eyes on him. A demise at Peeta's hands didn't sound all that bad. If there were anyone in this godforsaken arena who Cato would wish to be his end, at least he would find comfort in Peeta being it. He couldn't explain why. Peeta clearly felt the same since he had goaded Cato to do it not moments ago.

Cato's eyes lifted from the ground and rested upon Peeta's face again. The face that had enamoured him since the reaping recaps; the fact that had pushed him to flirt after the tribute parade and kiss him in the corridor. Even when etched with despair he was gorgeous, the shine of the tears spilling from his eyes almost ethereal.

"You're so beautiful." Cato had never said such a thing before in his life, not until he had met Peeta. He had told people they were hot; sexy; fuckable, but never beautiful. It had always felt too soft for someone like him to be saying.

Peeta stared at him like he was mad, but Cato didn't care. The word fit him so well, not just in appearance but in words and behaviour. Everything he did; everything he was and everything he stood for, was beautiful. He wished he could get Peeta to see it, to understand why he couldn't just let him disappear into the woods and die without fighting him tooth and nail. You don't let such beautiful people fade away from your life like that. Not when there's something you can do about it.

"It's funny," Peeta murmured, "I was thinking the same thing about you a few days ago."

Cato was stunned by this. Beautiful not being a word he had used to describe someone else before, it had most definitely not been a word he had thought of to describe himself. Nor had he ever imagined someone else using it to describe him either. He suddenly understood why Peeta always gawked like an animal caught in a spotlight whenever he was confronted with such compliments, because Cato was pretty sure he looked the exact same way right then.

"I'm going to kiss you now," Cato stated.

Peeta smiled, somewhat weakly. "Please do."

The arm Cato had been keeping Peeta pinned to the tree with relented, allowing him to draw closer to the smaller boy and invade his space once more. He rested his sword arm against the trunk above Peeta's head, the weapon itself having been safely stored back into its sheath to await the need to be drawn again.

The way their mouths fit together made Cato think of jigsaw pieces sliding into place, but when their lips began to move it reminded him of ocean waves, ebbing and flowing in a rhythm known only to nature itself. He had Peeta exactly where he wanted him, exactly where he loved to have him: safe, in his embrace, present and not going anywhere. Caged against the tree, here, held in place by Cato's lips alone, Peeta was protected. Protected from Anahita's words; the prospect of running away, and his own destructive thoughts.

It was easy to lose oneself in the embrace of the person one desired the most. And, God, was Cato boiling over with desire for the boy from 12. The kiss intensified, and Cato felt Peeta's hand rest upon his chest. Unable to help himself, his own hand drifted downwards, feeling along the other's torso over his t-shirt before slipping under to feel the warm skin beneath.

The skin-on-skin contact made Peeta gasp quietly, and he broke the kiss to stare at Cato. He didn't protest, or tell him to stop, and they simply stared at one another for a moment. "You won't find much," Peeta eventually whispered.

"What do you mean?" Cato panted, still breathless from their kiss.

"I'm not like you, or any of the other boys from 2, I'm sure. I'm not built like you."

Oh. Oh. "Peeta, I've been addicted to you since I first laid eyes on you and I'm sure you know by this point that to pretend that that stemmed from emotional connection in the beginning is foolish. Something had to draw me to you in the first place, something that pulled me to you before I heard your voice or seen how your nostrils flare when you're being stubborn; or how you tilt your chin in defiance even though you're smaller than me."

Peeta eyed him nervously and asked, "Which was?"

"Well, it was your hair at first," Cato admitted. "It stood out in your District like a polished ring. But that's just what captured my attention. Then I got a proper look at you." He leaned closer, curling his fingers into Peeta's skin, which caused the boy's eyes to flutter. "The mere idea of your body has been driving me insane since then. Those clothes your stylist put you in didn't help the situation much. I did tell you that you looked sexy before your interview, didn't I?"

Peeta cringed, as if the memory confused him greatly. "I figured you were trying to be funny."

Cato sighed. "Of course you did," he said. "Well, hear it straight from me now, and I'm being deadly serious here so take note: I have wanted nothing more than to feel you beneath my hands before I knew anything about the extent of your physique. Before I knew about the sacks of flour; or the weights; or the wrestling. Do you know why? Because it doesn't matter to me. I liked what I saw that night watching the recaps, and I decided in that moment that I wanted you."

Cato let his hand venture further up Peeta's shirt and, really, Peeta hadn't had anything to worry about. His torso felt toned, the tell-tale signs of the beginning of a six-pack forming but not quite there yet. Cato loved how soft his skin felt beneath his hand, nothing like the rock-hard bodies he was used to but the change incredibly welcome.

His hand paused over his chest, feeling Peeta's heart as it battered inside of him. At least they were on the same page in that regard: Cato's heart was killing itself too. They had gone from fighting to this in such a short space of time, but Cato wasn't going to complain. This was exactly what he had wanted: enjoying one another's time together while they still had it to enjoy.

"Do you want me to stop?" Cato asked.

Peeta shook his head, his hand coming to rest on the nape of Cato's neck and pulling their heads together. "I don't know," he admitted. "Not yet anyway."

Cato smirked, unable to hide how pleased that answer made him. He decided to be cheeky and looked down between them, getting an actual look at the body he had been feeling beneath his palm. He almost groaned with desire, unable to articulate how desperate this boy somehow made him in words.

"Don't stare," Peeta said peevishly.

"I can't help it," Cato insisted. "You're too sexy."

That word caused Peeta to cringe again and Cato couldn't help laughing. "You're just making fun of me now!" Peeta protested.

"Me? I wouldn't dream of it." Cato stole a kiss, and Peeta chased his lips when they parted. Cato dragged his thumb down the smaller boy's bottom lip, infatuated with how it was beginning to swell from their kissing. His thumb moved further down and captured his chin, caressing the skin beneath that had been marked by the tip of his sword. "You didn't mean it, really, did you?"

"I don't know," Peeta admitted. "Maybe I was acting on a desire I didn't realise I had, maybe I was just being reckless. It's hard to discern these things anymore."

Cato hoped it was the latter. The idea of Peeta actually wanting him to end his life made him feel sick. He could only take comfort in the fact that he could still feel Peeta's heart beating beneath his hand as they stood there, the best form of evidence there was to prove that Peeta was still alive and breathing.

"Could I . . .?" Peeta nodded to his own hand, which still rested on Cato's chest, and he immediately knew what he was being asked.

Cato nodded. "Yeah, of course."

Peeta's hand was cool and sent a shiver down his spine when it moved beneath his shirt. Cato closed his eyes for a moment to allow himself a moment to enjoy the feeling of the slightly calloused hand brushing his skin before resting in the exact same spot Cato was resting his own, right over his heart.

It was like a channel between them, somehow connecting their two hearts together with the simple touch of a hand. Cato wasn't even worried that Peeta would be able to feel just how fast his heart was beating, or how it would expose that he was capable of being just as nervous and flustered as Peeta himself could be. Things like that didn't matter to him anymore, not really. They weren't important.

But what was important, then? It used to be so easy. Cato's life plan had been set out in front of him from the minute he and Clove won the voluntary heats in 2. Win: earn that glory and bring it back home with him. Bask in the wealth and the luxury and the men being a Victor would bring him. That used to be all that was important to him. How could these things, things he had been working toward since the very beginning, be so easily warped and broken?

"You're in your head again," Peeta said quietly. "What are you thinking?"

"I can practically see my dad right now," Cato surprised himself by saying. He laughed, touching his forehead to Peeta's and closing his eyes. Peeta had started stroking his hair as he spoke, the sensation of his fingers brushing the scruffy blond hairs behind his ear sending shivers down his spine. "God, he's probably screaming at the screen every time he sees me. I promised him I wouldn't get distracted. The joke is on him, I haven't meant a promise I've made to him in years."

Peeta gestured for them to sit at the base of the tree. They did, moving the hands that had once sat on one another's chests to hold each other instead. "You don't get along?" he asked.

"He was very much 'Career stuff first, family later'," Cato shrugged. "I mean, I shouldn't blame him, it was how he was raised as well, he just was just passing the mantle down. Victory has always been my goal, as it is with everyone in a Career District, but damn, sometimes I just wanted to be a kid."

Cato had banished his family from his mind when he had volunteered. It wasn't that he believed they would pose a distraction, it was a tactic that was taught at the Academy in order to prevent hesitation or confliction. Besides, it wasn't like he had been part of some picture-perfect family who he would struggle to forget when he left. His Dad had been hard, and his Mum was absent. Not a lot to miss there.

"That's not a massive ask. Everyone deserves a childhood, even Careers," Peeta answered.

"Don't get me wrong, most Careers do get to be kids. It's not the twenty-four seven rigidity that we're well aware gets sold to the rest of the districts," Cato insisted. "You don't even join the Academy until you're eight years old. Most get to go home after class and enjoy their lives at home. Clove's parents are hilarious, they knew how embarrassed they made her and always made it their mission to show up to support her even when she didn't want them to. My Dad was just . . . different. To him, training starts as soon as you can walk and doesn't end until victory."

"What about your Mum?"

"Her little sister died in the Games when she was pregnant with me. She's never been truly . . . thereever since." His Mum's blank face flashed into his mind, and he quickly shook it away. "I doubt she has even noticed I'm gone right now."

Most people, when told about his Mum, jump to apologize. Peeta didn't. He simply held his hand tighter and nodded his understanding. It wasn't something Cato wanted "sorry's" for. It was nobody's fault, not even his mother's. It was the system; the Games; the government that had built this fallacy of a programme to punish people for a rebellion most weren't even alive to have seen anymore. Not only did it kill children, but it broke the lives of those who knew the children; cared for them and loved them.

There had been a girl in Cato's family who had been such a bright light in his mother's life that her death sparked her out completely. All life, all want to continue, drained from her despite the baby she was carrying at the time. And he would never know this girl; his Aunt, because she was no longer here.

Peeta's gaze was gentle, with not a glimmer of judgement, and the need to spill more overwhelmed him.

"I'm sure if a psychologist got their hands on me, they would say that my desperation to volunteer stemmed from my dad's psychotic obsession with winning and my desire to avenge the Aunt I never met and make up for what her death did to my Mum."

"Did . . ." Peeta paused, unsure, and Cato watched him carefully, intrigued by what he was going to ask. "Did he hit you? Your dad, I mean?"

"No, although I know for a fact there were times he wanted to." Raised hands suddenly paused; strikes aimed at dishes and vases; punches through walls instead. It all expressed an impulse to hit, to beat, to batter, but at last minute he always chose not to. Not that Cato was thankful for that. The impulse shouldn't have been there in the first place. Certainly not when he was only a child.

Cato could see on Peeta's face that his answer had bothered him somehow. His forehead was creased, eyebrows dipped into a frown, like he was thinking about something very intensely. "Why?"

Peeta didn't answer.

"Does your dad hit you?"

"Not my dad," Peeta quickly said.

"Your Mum?" Cato remembered what Peeta said earlier about his mother not believing he was getting out of the Games alive.

"Look, being a business owner in 12 isn't as easy some people think it is, and she's constantly under a bunch of pressure, and to be completely honest I think I was supposed to be a baby girl which after already having two boys getting a surprise third certainly isn't very nice, and I'm always getting in the way and doing things wrong, no wonder"-

"Peeta."

Peeta fell silent. He closed his eyes and inhaled. "I shouldn't have brought it up. I thought . . . I just thought that if your dad hit you then it would feel like what my mum does was a bit more normal. It was stupid of me."

Cato's heart felt heavy in his chest. "How badly?" he asked quietly.

Peeta subconsciously touched his nose. It was brief, his fingers swiping along the bridge fleetingly, but Cato noticed. He noticed and knew immediately what the question had brought to mind. The bump he had noticed on Peeta's nose in the tent. The bump that could only have come from someone having broken it.

His mother did that?

"She's not a bad person," Peeta insisted. "Living in 12 is hard on everyone."

"So, everyone is beating their kids in 12?"

"Don't be ridiculous, of course not, but"-

"Did she break your nose?"

Peeta looked partially alarmed, his hand going back to his nose but staying there this time. "What? Why would you even thin"-

Cato reached out and moved Peeta's hand, gently feeling the bump on his nose with his thumb. "I'm a Career, Peeta, I know how a broken nose heals."

Eyes glued on the ground, Peeta sighed heavily. He took Cato's hand and removed it from his nose, holding it in his lap instead. "It was a rolling pin," he admitted. "I was a clumsy kid. I still am in many ways. I'd fall and break things and burn stuff by accident far too much. We have deadlines to meet, quotas to fill. The rolling pin kept us in line. I . . ."

Peeta blinked rapidly, like he was removing an image from his head. Cato could feel his hands shaking.

"I tried hiding it," he continued. "I hated the sight of the damn thing. She used to keep it where I could see it when we were working, like some sort of fucked up warning or an omen of some sort. I hid it under my pillow so she couldn't find it. But she did and God, she hit me so hard I think I blacked out."

"Peeta . . ."

"It's fine," Peeta interrupted. "Look at me, not a mark is ever left. It always fades."

Cato wanted to say that that didn't matter. That bruises and cuts faded, but they still left trauma behind, but he didn't want to rile Peeta up about it. He was being incredibly vulnerable talking about this, and Cato didn't want him to clam up and close off. "Doesn't your dad care?"

"He does, but there's not a lot he can do. She kind of has us all wrapped around her and her whims." Peeta laughed. "It's so dumb. I've been bigger than her since I hit puberty, yet I still let her do it. Why do I do that?"

Cato understood. He got to be bigger than his dad very quickly, his early training and entrance to the Academy making it inevitable. And when his hormones appeared, well, his dad didn't stand a chance. Yet the man could still make him feel like a skinny little boy again, a child with a wooden sword who desperately wanted to go out and play. He let his dad speak to him like that, to still aim his fist at the wall by his head, and he did nothing to stop him even though he was fully capable of doing so.

"She's your mother," Cato said. "We can't choose our family. We can't choose how we feel about our family either, no matter what they do to us."

"It's always me," Peeta muttered. "She always went for me, ever since we were kids. Maybe she knew that I wouldn't fight back. Maybe she knew I'd let her do it. Maybe that's why she knows I'm not coming back home. I never stood up to her, how could I ever stand up to a bunch of kids trying to kill me?"

Cato cracked his jaw. He hated that Peeta's mother had not only felt such a way about him but also had the audacity to tell him it. Her own son. She didn't even have the decency to keep it to herself. Peeta could explain it away as pressure and circumstance but whatever possessed anyone to take a rock-hard, weighted object and smack their child across the face with it was evil. It made Cato feel that angry urge again, the one that had spilled over when Anahita had been taunting him. He wanted to hurt the woman who had hurt Peeta, make her feel even a fraction of what she had made her son feel.

No wonder Peeta was so convinced he wasn't going to make it. He had been beaten into the ground by the very woman who was supposed to love and nurture him. And for what? Because she owned a business? Because she lived in 12? Because he was clumsy, or he was supposed to be a girl? None of it was a good enough excuse. Even Katniss had done more to make Peeta feel better about his odds than that woman had done.

"You don't deserve that treatment," Cato said firmly. "No one does."

Peeta smiled sadly. He touched the side of Cato's face. "And you deserved a childhood."

It was strange hearing that. No one had ever said it to him before. It was like something loosened in his chest, freeing itself completely. Like he had been waiting for such an affirmation his entire life. If he wasn't so good at suppressing sad emotions, Cato was sure he would have burst into tears on the spot.

Peeta closed the small distance between them and kissed Cato. He had not initiated a kiss before, and Cato was slightly taken aback by it. It was soft, and peaceful, and so welcome. Cato pulled Peeta closer and gently deepened it, practically dipping the smaller boy in his arms as he tried to convey through their connection just how important and worthy he was, and how he deserved the world and nothing that that witch of a mother had given him.

When they parted, Cato held Peeta tightly, afraid that if he loosened his grip even a little, he'd slip away. "Please don't go. Not yet."

Peeta stared at him. He seemed dismayed. Clearly, he still thought leaving would be the best option. "I will stay," he conceded. "But eventually . . . you're going to have to let me go."

"Let's sort out Katniss first . . ."

"Do you think the others know?" Peeta asked. "They don't seem stupid. Clove has admitted that she doesn't believe I was ever leading you guys to her, but do you think the other three know?"

Cato shrugged. "I don't think Glimmer or Marvel would care all that much at this point. They both voted for you to stay in the pack even after we kill Katniss."

Peeta pulled a face at the 'kill Katniss' part. "And the other two? I'm sure they would have some pretty strong feelings if they knew I never intended to lead you guys to Katniss."

"Clove is still thinking about it," Cato explained. "She isn't sure how she feels right now. Even so, it would be three against two if she decided against letting you stay. That's"-

"Excuse me?"

Anahita exploded from the treeline like a firecracker. It was so sudden, Cato almost jumped in surprise. He was immediately on his feet, immediately in front of Peeta as the girl came charging toward them.

"Never intended to what?" Anahita shouted.

"Anahita"-

"I knew it, I fucking knew it!" Anahita started laughing. "And here I was coming to find you guys to make sure someone hadn't come along and hurt you!" She shoved Cato hard, but he barely moved. Of course she had happened upon them at the worst possible moment, when the most damning things were being said.

"Go back to the camp, Anahita," Cato said sternly.

"Oh, you want me to go back and let them know?" Anahita said. "My fucking pleasure."

Cato grabbed her arm as she turned to leave. "Does it even matter? We have Katniss in our sights! Why does it matter whether he led us to her or not? She's a guaranteed kill!"

"Because that was the whole reason he was here! I put up with him for a lie? You're supposed to be a leader, Cato. A Career leader! You're one of us, yet you're deceiving us and making us look like idiots for some opportunistic whore from 12!" Anahita looked to be getting angrier and angrier the more she thought about it. Her face was turning pink as she ranted. "It looks from where I'm standing like the rest of us are incidental to you as long as you have your rent-a-fuck with you!"

"Anahita"-

"No, no, no," Anahita snapped, "you're not talking anymore. I'm sick to my fucking teeth of listening to you berate me for being the only person in this fucking pack who is actually using their brain. I'm done with this; I'm done with listening to you." She lifted her machete. "Get out of the way or I'll cut straight through you too."

She lunged.