To confessional hymns for the devil, himself
Disclaimer: I own nothing that has copyright attached.
Note: We're finally here! Crazy to think how long ago I started this, and it's finally come to a wrap. When I started, I had no intention following past their introduction to district 13, and I still feel like that is a good enough stopping point. Thanks, everyone, for following along and supporting me tirelessly the whole way!
p.s. smut ahoy!
chapter twelve
It isn't long after the first couple of missiles explode on what is left of District 13 that a piercing, shrill air raid siren sounds from deep beneath the empty District. It's the first sign of human life present in the area that they've found so far. Smart of them to go to ground to prevent Snow's reconnaissance teams from discovering their location. It must be how they've flown under the radar thus far.
They watch in abject horror as Snow's drones continue to rain hell down upon the District. But it isn't making sense. If Snow's original plan is for them to attack the District, then why is he going through the trouble of bombing them instead? Clove feels her blood run cold as a second realization comes to her mind. He is no longer planning to use them at all. In fact, they are now an absolute liability with information that he will not want getting out. They are now just something to fuck up his plans.
"We n-need to," she whispers beneath her breath, fear gripping her trachea with icy fingers. She takes a tremulous swallow, and then her voice rises deep from her chest next. "We need to leave! We're not safe here!"
At first, no one seems to hear her. No one dares to move a muscle. Dares to even breathe. Surprisingly, Glimmer is the first to react—breaking the group's paralysis with a shrill, frightened scream. She stumbles backward, splashing in the shallow edge of the water. Cato glances wildly about them before springing into action next. His voice booms out commands above the chaos.
"Everyone now! Under the falls! Keep your heads covered!"
The Tributes scatter quickly, rushing around the far left edge of the pool where several rocks jut out as footholds to the waterfall base. With Clove's heart beating wildly in her chest, she stays rooted to her spot. She watches Cato usher them faster over the treacherous path until they are well away from the potential of harm. They huddle in a small group that she can barely see through the icy water cascading in front of them.
She feels his presence next to her, a calloused hand grasping her above the elbow and tugging. "Clove, we need to go!" he yells over the ringing in her own ears.
"Are they all there?" she shrieks back. She needed to know they were all going to be okay. She didn't think she could watch another die in front of her. They had to be all okay. "Did you get them all!?"
Cato stares wordlessly at her, lips shrinking to a thin line. Their eyes exchange a conversation that their mouths can't speak out loud. "All but Thresh..."
She barely registers her body turning before she's off, legs pumping, in the direction of where District 13 is ablaze in front of her. Her blood chills in her body at the thought of losing another Tribute to Snow's hands. Even Thresh's. Especially Thresh's. Snow cannot steal him from their grasps.
She passes an old deer blind before Cato catches up with her not a moment too soon. The blast of a nearby explosion sends debris and concrete flying in her direction. It narrowly misses tearing through her torso as Cato snakes an arm around her midsection and yanks her back roughly.
"Clove! Are you crazy?! You can't go after him!" he yells, dragging her back. Her feet kick out against the ground, desperately trying to break free from his hold. Hot tears track down her cheeks, and she is shocked to find herself crying.
"He made it! He made it," Cato continues, pushing her towards the deer blind. "Go up! We need cover!"
She blindly reaches for the rope ladder that hangs from underneath the small wooden and brick shelter and pulls herself up. Her forearms burn with the effort, but Cato is right beneath her pushing the back of her thighs into the square opening.
She collapses once inside, gasping and feeling her heart race behind her rib cage. Another explosion, this time further away but still too close for comfort, rocks the deer stand. The wood creaks in a dangerous, exciting way, with Clove chasing the extreme adrenaline in her own bloodstream. Cato is leaning over the railing, entranced by the fiery scene in front of them now that they can get a better view. The flames of what is left of District 13 flicker and reflect within his blue orbs.
"Do you think they're safe back there?" Clove whispers, her knuckles white from gripping the edge of the rotten wooden railing. She can barely make out the hovercrafts swooping lightning-quick through the smoke in the direction of where the group had stopped to make camp. Within moments, a series of teeth-shattering explosions sound one right after another. The smell of burnt fuel reaches them in the wind.
"I'm sure Thresh made it there in time. He's fast. They're all safe, Clove." Cato breathes out a heavy sigh. He turns too to check that the Tributes can still be seen through the dense trees between them. "I don't think the debris can reach them where they're at. It'll just be loud."
He shuffles to the opening of the deer blind and kneels. Reaching down through the narrow door, he begins coiling the knotted rope they used to climb up.
"What are you doing?" she asks him, nervous as the stand shakes a little more with the next bomb that drops. They might need the ladder to make a quick getaway.
"I don't want them to see," he murmurs, pausing to grip the frayed ends in his hands. They shake slightly. "I don't want them to come up here and see." She can see him fighting to hold back what he really wants to say. He is vibrating with the force of what he's keeping inside.
Clove squats in front of him while balancing all her weight on her heels. The tips of her boots knock into his own. "Hey. Talk to me. What are you thinking right now?"
His eyes are bright and wild when he finally looks up. "This is the first time we've saved someone. Not killed them in cold blood." He drops the rope at his feet to wring his hands together nervously. "Funny how it makes me feel so much more exhilarated. I must sound crazy, huh?"
Clove sits in silence with him for the next breath of a moment, dissecting the emotions that cross his face. The feelings that are surely crossing her own. He raises his gaze to look at her finally, blue eyes piercing deep into her own hazel.
With a soft gasp, she comes to an earth-shattering realization: She loves him. She loved him as a ruthless murderer. She loves him as a saint. It is pointless to deny it any longer and useless to try to keep this from crossing her face for him to see.
He's right. Clove feels proud of what they accomplished today, what they've accomplished over the last several weeks with the Tributes. The bombs dropping nearby make the deer stand shudder from their violence, but Clove hardly notices it anymore. Amid this chaos, Cato pushes her backward to lie nearly flat beneath him, her legs making room for his long frame by curling loosely around his waist.
He slides his fingers into her hair, holding her cheek in his palm. It is such a loving gesture that she feels her next breath catch in her chest. They were in a similar position just the morning before, but somehow this moment resonates in a much different way. The expression on his face is wistful, lust-filled yet soft. His eyes smolder where they trace the contour of her face and hone in for several long moments to her lips. Clove's tongue darts out to wet them.
It takes no longer than the blink of an eye to feel the warmth between her thighs and the insistent pulse of her arousal building. Combined with the adrenaline from running for their lives and Cato's weight pressing down on her, she is so turned on at that moment that if he were to stop, she would combust. Kill him first, of course, and then just combust right on the spot.
Cato pauses, staring down from above her with an unreadable look on his face. "Do you want this?" he asks her, almost timidly. His eyes dart from between her own and back down to her lips quickly. He might not wait for her answer.
"Do you really think I would let you between my legs like this if I didn't want it?" Clove replies, unable to help the sarcasm from leaking through even though her voice wavers. After all, it is a solid defense mechanism, and she would be lying if she said she didn't feel overly vulnerable at the moment.
"I just don't want you to try and stab me again," he continues simply, remembering another moment in time when they were in a similar position. He pauses before glancing away, almost bashful. "I love you."
The quiet admission is still startling to Clove, although she had been expecting its arrival for some time now. She raises one of her hands to brush the tousled strands back that are growing out long enough to fall over his forehead into his eyes. Her nails scratch his scalp reassuringly before she grips, pulling his face closer to her.
"I didn't plan on stabbing you, but if you don't kiss me right now, I might rethink the idea entirely."
He hesitates for just a moment, sharing her breath before Clove can't take it anymore. She leans up to catch his mouth with her own, feeling the plumpness of his bottom lip give to her more demanding pressure. The taste of Cato's surrender to her tastes like having her name called at the Reaping a thousand times over—heady...conquering...validating.
He kisses her back, different than their previous shared experience in his tent. He kisses her deeply, thoroughly. As if he has all the time in the world to explore her mouth. Not that they are hooking up to the backdrop of bombs exploding violently nearby. It equally frustrates her and turns her into putty in his arms. She would never describe herself as such, but she feels like she has transformed into a completely different person in his presence.
She tries to lift her hips higher into the junction of his legs, seeking the friction that is just enough to drive her mad and nothing further. Cato's large palm snakes around the small of her back and helps lift her into her thrusts. She's surprised that the desperate noise she hears is coming from her.
He suddenly pulls back, and she whines at the loss of his weight against her. "W-what are you doing? Why are we stopping?"
Cato has the nerve, the gall, the outright audacity to smirk down at her. However, she can't bring forth enough annoyance when he sets to work removing his shirt and unbuttoning his pants. Clove mirrors his movements, hungrily tugging her own tunic over her head and pushing her pants to her ankles. They get trapped around her feet, and she uses her toes to kick them off entirely. The cool air hits her skin, causing it to pebble, and she wraps her arms protectively around her chest. It feels different now; she had been so in control last time.
Cato's cock is a hard line beneath the fabric of his underwear. She hadn't gotten the best look at it in the tent, but now she can see that his is something to be proud of for sure. It curves up towards his waist—easily seven...eight inches but as thick around as her wrist. Clove reaches out to run her hand along its length, feeling the blazing heat even through the layer separating her palm from bare skin. His blue eyes, usually so bright and clear, are shadowed by the darkness of the night. The fires nearby reflect across his face, and Clove feels hunted at that moment. It only serves to make her blood race faster.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" He doesn't respond, and Clove feels a knot of apprehension build in her spine. "Are you going to do something or what?!" she snaps, losing her patience with his games.
Cato barks out a laugh. "Clove, you're like a wild animal," he replies, voice filled with affection and humor. He shuffles forward before lowering his head down between her legs.
Instantly, Clove clamps her thighs together. Too vulnerable. It isn't even that she's worried about her hygiene. She washed up the last time she had emptied her bladder, but it's the sheer thought that Cato will be closer to her center than she has ever allowed anyone before. She will be totally at his mercy.
He runs his hands reverently up her muscled calves, worshiping the soft, damp skin behind her knees with his fingertips. His eyes close in rapture as he mouths across the expanse of skin she is allowing him. Her chest feels too full. There is a lump solidly lodged in her throat from watching him.
Slowly, she allows her legs to splay and give way to trembling as Cato draws her underwear down her thighs before removing them completely.
"That's it, baby, that's it," he breathes against her. She jerks at the same time an explosion shakes the stand beneath them. She starts once more when she feels his fingers separate her labia. Maybe she is a wild animal—caught in an exhibit to be stared at. This once-fleeting thought intensifies when Cato's tongue lays flat against her center and slides achingly slow upwards before circling the hard nub of her clit.
At first, it's a strange sensation that just tickles. Clove is just about to blow him off and get on to more important things when Cato abruptly jerks her forward by her hips into his own lap. She lets out an undignified yelp when he hooks her knees over her shoulders and brackets the back of her skull with his thighs.
She twists in his grip, trying to angle her core away from his face. Way too vulnerable. The blood starts rushing to her head when Cato opens his mouth against her, and Clove immediately understands what the fuss is all about when it comes to this sex act. His tongue slides wetly through her folds and dips into the opening of her pussy. The crude sounds of him lapping her up is somehow deafening over the chaos.
A moan slips past her lips when the pressure of Cato's tongue flicks just right against her clit. Another when his eyes snap up to lock onto her own. She feels his smirk against her pussy. "Stop looking at me," she threatens with a betraying stutter, throwing an arm over her own face to avoid making further eye contact.
"I have to say I like this side of you," vibrates from his mouth straight to her center. She shivers, pressure building steadily in her pelvis. "Helpless as a kitten."
She opens her mouth to deliver a retort when she feels Cato's fingers slip through the wetness, and her breathing quickens instead. She squirms in his lap, trying to drive his fingers deeper inside her, but he stubbornly moves them in shallow thrusts, barely cresting past the first knuckle. She clamps down around the emptiness that her body didn't even recognize before. Now it feels like it's all she can think about; the unyielding desire to be filled entirely and then some.
She whines—high, needy—a noise that she is shocked to hear from herself as Cato continues to just play at her entrance. "Cato, I need-." She punctuates this with a sharp thrust of her hips. He swears under his breath and finally, blessedly, slides two fingers home at the same time his mouth closes over her clit.
Shit. It feels good. Good in a way that she could never replicate with her own hands. Cato pumps his fingers inside her at a steady pace as he eats her out, her juices glistening around his mouth. She feels more of the same slick slide down between her ass-cheeks where Cato uses his other hand to grip and knead firmly.
He's noisy—all rumbling groans and contented sighs. Clove can tell he struggles to keep his eyes open to watch her expressions. They keep shuttering closed with every breathy exhalation that leaves her throat. Her chest seizes with the knowledge of how much he is enjoying giving her pleasure.
"Oh fuck, fuuuuck, right there!" she exclaims when Cato's fingers crook against the tightness of her upper walls, massaging a spot that has her arching like a bow in his lap. She feels rather than sees his smirk against her as he fingers her to an almost brutal pace, tongue lathing firmly. The mix of the two sensations builds the pressure in her pelvis to its height. It drags her to its peak with it. She is dimly aware of her legs shaking, abdominal muscles clenching as she chases the bright, molten lava in her veins.
Open-mouthed, panting, she feels her peripheral vision fall away and narrow into a black-rimmed tunnel of Cato gazing intensely at her over the fleshy mound of her sex. His blue eyes glitter darkly with his own arousal, the pupil threatening to overwhelm the entire iris. Her hips jerk helplessly against his mouth as he brings her ever-closer to a cliff that she can't fathom cresting.
She wants him.
Even like this, she aches to have more of him filling and consuming her. And there on the rough wooden floor of a derelict, long-forgotten deer blind while District 13 burns to the ground around them, Clove surrenders all her hard-held control to the only man she trusts herself not to turn on.
"Please, Cato, please," she hears the hitch in her voice. Accepts it. It's his. The wire of tension forcefully snaps within her, and she feels heat radiate from her cervix to engulf her body in a delirious sensation. A surge of electricity follows shortly after and sets every nerve ending alive inside her. It's torturous; she never wants it to stop.
She is only vaguely aware of how tight her calves press against Cato's back until he chuckles and swings her legs back down towards the ground. They flop, useless, around his waist. She is still trembling and barely paying attention to Cato who's hands are fumbling briefly while she tries to catch her breath.
It's all for naught as Cato catches her hip and draws her leg up against his side. "I told you I would get you like this, didn't I? Only then would I do this," he punctuates with a slight shift of his hips. Suddenly there is a brilliant pressure, and her pussy opens up to his cock sliding into her in one smooth thrust.
The breath she had been trying so hard to catch escapes back out in a low, drawn-out groan. The fullness of Cato's cock within her amps up her trembling times ten, and she latches onto both of his biceps and squeezes hard. He feels so utterly fantastic that she wishes she could rewind time and hit replay on how it felt when he pushed inside her.
"C-Cato, Cato, shit," she mumbles, moaning when he adjusts his hips only a fraction. If it is possible to get any wetter than she already is, Clove manages it. It lacks the pain that she had been warned about by Glimmer a long time ago before the Games started. Now she suspects that Glimmer's partners didn't take the time to properly warm her up, so to speak; it shouldn't have to hurt.
"And now you're begging my name as planned," he teases in a breathless voice. He draws back slowly, which elicits another moan from Clove, toes curling where they dig into the side of his buttock. She wants to cuss him out for being so cocky, but she is afraid that he'll stop doing what he's doing. Besides, he's making enough sounds of his own that she knows he's gotten himself in way over his head.
Instead, she pulls his head down for a biting kiss, sweeping her tongue through the seam of his lips that open up with a heavy sigh. He relinquishes control of the kiss, and Clove takes that opportunity to put her entire heart into it. She isn't good with words; action has always been her MO. She hopes she's able to relay the apologies she's owed to him for some time now.
Old Clove would have thought it a weakness. She smiles against Cato's teeth at the insanity of their relationship and how she's somehow turned into one of those addle-brained girls that allow a man to change them. But he's right, though. It feels more profound that they've saved their teammates and to go against Snow.
She feels understanding pour from Cato if how fervently he kisses her back is any indication. His slow thrusting between her legs lessens in intensity as Clove grows more accustomed to feeling him inside her. She takes a moment to stretch her ankles and revel in the furrowed brow of the man hovering above her. He drops his head to her shoulder, breath ragged.
Without knowing a lot about male orgasms, Clove is so attuned to Cato's body language at this point that she can tell he is tiptoeing a fine line. His hips snap into hers, and she squeezes her thighs around the small of his back and meets his thrusts. "Fuck, I love you. You feel so goddamn good," he pants, kissing up the side of her neck to the ticklish spot behind her ear.
Clove has to agree. While it's not as exquisite of pleasure as his mouth on her was, fucking Cato is a very close second. On his next thrust, Clove uses her thighs to trap him against her and grind her pelvis against his.
Cato's eyes widen comically, and he desperately pushes away and pulls out of her just in time for him to empty thick ropes of cum across her lower abdomen. Clove barks out a laugh. Cato hangs his head between his shoulders, groaning loudly. His lips turn up in a smirk when she sits up, still laughing.
"You think that shit is funny now. Fuck around and find out; you'll be waddling nine months from now."
She smiles, all-Cheshire cat, and crawls to him on all fours. "What if I want to find out, hm?" she purrs, enjoying the lusty haze that clouds Cato's eyes immediately despite just cumming. His lips part and she swears his softening cock begins to grow hard between them again.
She leans in...and swipes his shirt from their pile of clothing to wipe her stomach clean. She kisses the hurt look of betrayal from his lips and pulls on her clothing. Now that they are no longer sharing body heat, the cold night air whips at her naked skin. Cato follows suit, zipping his jacket over his bare chest.
She approaches the edge of the deer blind and surveys what's left of District 13. There hadn't been much to start with—a few run-down brick buildings. The hovercrafts have disappeared, leaving behind smoking rubble in their wake. From her vantage point, she sees that the bombs didn't penetrate far enough into the earth to cause any lasting damage to the underground District.
Cato approaches from behind, wrapping his arms around her and resting his chin on the top of her head. She feels annoyance begin to boil in her veins.
"Cut that shit out," she spits, but there is no heat behind it.
Cato takes it in stride, pulling away with a laugh. "Too soon, maybe," he chuckles, holding his hands up in peace when she fixes him with a glare.
She rolls her eyes and kicks the rope ladder through the open hole in the floor. "Let's go. With any luck, we'll find out Marvel's leg can't be saved, and we can amputate.
The early light of dawn is cresting the horizon when Thresh breaks through the treeline with a small group of District 13's guerrilla militia flanking him. Rue rushes forward, embracing him tightly around the middle. Clove is happy to see him and doesn't care to keep it from showing on her face.
Once the rest of the Tributes have gathered around, Thresh launches into how he got into 13. Just barely—they almost shot him on the spot and would have if someone hadn't recognized who he was from the Games.
"They thought I was dead. That we had all died. Snow made sure of that."
"President Coin is pissed," one of the fighters says, stepping forward. "We all are." She looks around at the faces staring back at her. "She invites you into the District—wants to let you know that she has a job for you. If you're up for it."
A shit-eating grin spreads across the woman's face. Clove feels her own mouth mirror it back. Oh yes, she will sign up for this job, no questions asked. By the way her friends gather around and share a knowing look between them, she guesses they are also up for the task.
The Capitol might have gotten their kicks out playing with their heads—pitting them against each other for sport. The intelligent thing would have been to never wake them up in the first place. Now they're wide awake, eyes open.
Snow wanted an army. Now he's got one. And they're out for blood.