Know Your Enemy - Chapter 8
Peeta didn't think he would ever be more thankful that Clove was in the Games and allied with him than he was at this moment in time. Somewhere along the line, either at group training or training back in Two, she'd learned about a certain type of leaf that, when mushed up, eased the pain of tracker jacker stings so much that Peeta could hardly even feel the sharp jab of pain any more. But Peeta hadn't been stung that badly, so it wasn't too bad in the first place. Cato however, was still in pain even after the leaves.
Peeta crawled over to where the boy was twitching on the ground. He'd succumbed to sleep over the past couple of hours, but kept moaning and whimpering, restless, and noticeably in pain. Peeta reached over to feel his forehead and felt it burning up, and so pulled out his water skin from his pocket before peeling Cato's sticky jacket off him. He was sweating profusely, and Peeta bit his lip. Should he take off his t-shirt? He debated for a moment before deciding. He had to just do it – Cato would literally set on fire if he didn't... a bit like Katniss. Some part of him wanted to laugh at the irony of the punishment while the other part felt sorry for her. They should have known better than to underestimate her.
He inched the t-shirt off Cato and proceeded to empty his water skin onto the boy's blistering hot torso, all the while adding leaves onto his multiple tracker jacker stings in attempt to rid him of the pain quicker. As he was working away, he didn't notice Cato opening his eyes blearily until he went to treat a sting on his neck. Their eyes met and Peeta didn't know what to do. Would Cato be mad? But the other boy just smiled at him softly.
"You already trying to get me out of my clothes?" His voice sounded awful from lack of use. Cato seemed to notice this too, frowning.
Peeta smiled. "You were burning up." He was unsure of himself. "Do you want me to get Clove, or…?"
Cato vehemently shook his head. "No. I want you to take care of me. Just you." His eyes were still slightly unfocused and Peeta realised that Cato must be still experiencing mild hallucinations, or at least he wasn't quite together. He smiled, nodded and picked up another pile of leaves.
"Okay." He said, which placated Cato for the time being. He lay down again and shut his eyes, trusting Peeta to take care of him.
Peeta felt the boy begin to drop off again and marvelled at the way their relationship had progressed along over the course of a few days. They weren't at each other's throats any more, that was for sure. He smiled at the thought as he went to fill up the water skin again. When he came back, Clove was beginning to attend to him, looking stressed and tired.
"It's okay," he smiled widely. "I got it." He bent down to finish helping to the older boy, only just catching Clove's smirk.
"What?"
"Nothing." She cleared her face. "It's just cute how close you two have become, that's all." With that she walked away.
Cute wasn't quite the word he'd use to describe their relationship. He'd be thinking more along the lines of 'dangerous' and 'life-threatening'. There was a limit to how close you could get to an ally in games like these, and he was starting to feel as if he'd already breached it. He'd grown Close to Cato and close to Clove, so much so that it pained him to think that they would have to die if he was going to live.
His chest tightened and he simply stared at Cato's peaceful expression for a few minutes. He looked so much younger in sleep, so much more innocent. In that moment he knew that as hard as it would be to kill Clove, he simply couldn't kill this boy. He wouldn't be able to do it, and the irritating thing was that his plan would all fail because he'd allowed himself to become attached to the pair from District Two. Even so, this still wouldn't spur him on to kill them. He brushed a stray lock of hair from Cato's face and tucked it behind his ear.
He'd find it harder to kill Cato than Katniss, he realised with a jolt.
Frowning, he shook his head to stop himself from analysing his feelings any further. That would only get him confused, and he had to be at the top of his game now. Instead he made the subconscious decision to focus on nursing Cato back to his full health, a necessary distraction in more ways than one. He wouldn't forgive himself if the boy died as fault of Peeta's inept care, especially when he'd asked for Peeta specifically.
"Do you want me to keep watch?" Clove asked him, wandering over to where Peeta was sat, staring at the ground and thinking.
"It's okay." He smiled. "I'm not really tired. You must have taken watch last night anyway, when we were all passed out."
Clove had been the only one unharmed by the tracker jacker venom, the only one who remained conscious throughout the night. As they had fallen into an uneasy and painful sleep-like state, she had sat with them and tended to them as best she could, sending the boy from Three out into the darkness to gather the leaves to help her.
Peeta was almost surprised that the boy had returned. He could have easily escaped while three out of four of them were down, but he hadn't. Perhaps the idea of defying them was so incomprehensible to his mind that the idea hadn't even struck him. Maybe he thought it was too dangerous, didn't know that his best chance of survival was as far from them as he could get but as long as he was with them, he was nothing more than a sitting duck. As soon as he was no longer of any use, he'd be killed. Luckily for him, he'd proven himself to be quite useful thus far. That was the only reason his heart still beat softly in his chest.
"Yeah..." She laughed lightly, pulling him out of his musings. "I couldn't have slept anyway. I was too worried about you guys." Though she said guys, Peeta was nearly certain that the grouping didn't include Marvel. He and Cato and Clove had formed a stronger alliance than the one with the District One boy without even trying.
"Yeah, I know what you mean." His gaze drifted over to Cato. "I guess I feel the same."
Clove smiled at him sadly. Maybe she was thinking about how they couldn't all survive, and that they would only be friends for a couple of weeks more at the most. That she might have to kill him. But she didn't say any of that. She just reached out her hand to ruffle Peeta's hair.
Without deliberating, he stood up wordlessly and hugged her. He felt like she was the best friend he'd had for a while, if ever. They clung to each other for several minutes, anchoring themselves to one another, and when they broke apart it was all too obvious that the two of them were thinking the same thing from the slight glaze of their eyes. Neither allowed a tear to escape though, simply bidding one another goodnight with somewhat watery smiles.
He was struck just then with how much he hated the games. Anger was building up inside him, tongues of fire lapping at his gut until he saw Cato shuffle in his sleep, and a scared whimper emerge from his lips. The anger dissipated quicker than it had arrived, and all he felt now was an overwhelming desire to help him. He shuffled to the boy quickly, concerned, gauging his temperature to see if he needed a blanket when the older boy woke up.
"Peeta?" He asked, confused. "What are you doing?" He was truly awake this time, his eyes rid of the unfocused look they had possessed earlier.
"You got stung by tracker jackers..." Peeta looked at him and smiled. "I was just looking after you. As I've been doing all day, at your own special request." He rolled his eyes while still smiling down at him.
Cato groaned a little out of embarrassment as he recalled his hallucination-state. "Oh yeah," He laughed a little. "Well... thank you." He said sincerely, and smiled wide at Peeta. "But could you pass me a jacket? I'm absolutely freezing."
This reminded Peeta that Glimmer had still been clad in his jacket when she died and he groaned quietly at this. There was no chance that the Capitol wouldn't have removed her corpse by now, so there was no way he could get it back. He'd have to spend the rest of the games defenseless against the cold. Stupid Glimmer, a hindrance even in death.
Pushing his own problems aside, he returned his thoughts to the task at hand. He could worry about himself later.
He'd replaced Cato's t-shirt a few hours ago, as he had begun to cool rapidly, but left the second layer off as a precaution in case his fever picked up again. At the request, he fetched Cato his jacket dutifully and sat down next to him, watching as the boy clumsily tugged it on again. He'd misjudged his location and sat maybe a little too close for comfort, and he found himself shifting a little awkwardly before leaving it be. Hopefully the other boy wouldn't find it too weird. Besides, it was warmer this way, and Peeta could use all the warmth he could get.
It wasn't until they both turned round to look at one another that he realised quite how close they were. Peeta had never been this close to anyone before, sans the spattering of fights he'd had with Cato over the past few days. The atmosphere was completely different now, though. Peeta was glad that this time they weren't mid-fight.
"Why did you look after me?" Cato blurted after a moment. Instantly after saying it, his expression became apprehensive, as if he regretted even asking the question.
"You asked me to." Peeta said simply, but the look on the other boy's face told him that wasn't enough. "And, well, I don't want you to die. You're my strongest ally." He paused before adding "More than that. You're my friend and I'm sure you would've done the same for me."
"I'm sure I wouldn't have," the boy replied honestly. Peeta smiled back at him. The two looked at each other for what could have only been a minute, but it seemed to last forever.
"I don't want you to die either." Cato whispered after a long stretch of silence, holding Peeta's gaze so that they were staring right into one another's eyes. It probably should have been awkward, but somehow it wasn't.
Suddenly, Cato was leaning forward, hesitantly drawing closer. Peeta found himself unable to move, somehow entranced by other boy's eyes. They were a light, baby blue, so soft and gentle looking that he wondered how he'd never noticed that before, how he ever thought that this boy was deadly. The eyes gave away the person who lay underneath the cold facade.
Then, before he knew it, Cato's lips were at his own. Peeta only hesitated for a fraction of a second, though that was enough for Cato to begin to pull away, before he delved into the kiss, his hand reaching up to wrap around the other boy's neck and hold him firmly in place.
He'd never kissed anyone before, and it felt strange, slow and sweet. Warm. There was an undercurrent of something there, something that made this more than a gentle press of lips together, so much so that Peeta couldn't even think. He just felt.
In this moment, the outside world didn't exist. The two boys weren't in a competition for their lives. They were just ordinary teenagers, caught up in each other, starved of affection to the point that this felt right. It felt like they belonged.
They were just trying to make it through the day.
Peeta didn't notice that he'd fallen asleep, but when he awoke the next morning he was cold and began to shiver. Once again he cursed Glimmer for his lack of jacket. The air around him was frosty, and his clothes were a little damp and muddy from the light spattering's of rain the night before. He should've slept in the tent.
Looking about him, he realised that he was alone. Everybody else was probably inside in the dry warmth of their sleeping bags, still sound asleep. Well, everybody except for Cato, who had also slept outside. Where was he?
He bit his lip. He was willing to bet that the other boy regretted last night, and that was why he was nowhere to be seen. He hugged his arms tightly around his chest. It wasn't like it had been a big deal or anything. For all he knew, Cato was still hallucinating from the tracker jacker stings when he kissed him.
This realization crashed around his shoulders like a ton of bricks. Of course.
Standing up quickly, he decided it was time to wake Clove up. He'd just have to ignore Cato as much as he could for the best part of the day and hope the boy didn't remember the previous night. Even if he did, perhaps Peeta would be able to convince him that it had been nothing more than a hallucination brought about by the venom.
He was just about to reach into the tent when Marvel jumped out of it, his expression hostile. "What are you doing?" the boy demanded. Peeta wondered for a second why he was acting like he'd been offended.
"I was gonna wake up Clove." He stared at Marvel, nonplussed. What was wrong with him? He'd had a whole night's sleep for two nights running, unlike some other people.
Marvel simply sneered at him before clearing out of the way. What the hell was his problem? Peeta scowled after him. He guessed it was because the time when the Careers would break apart and fight to the death was edging closer. Maybe Marvel had just decided to start the un-pleasantries sooner rather than later. Or maybe he'd realised he was the outsider in the pack now that Glimmer was gone.
Well, except from Three.
Still a little bemused, he ducked into the tent. Clove looked so small in sleep, her lithe body curled up in her sleeping bag. The younger boy was close by her side, his head resting gently on her shoulder. For some reason, the little kid trusted her more than he did any of the others. He shouldn't, though. Clove was just as deadly.
Peeta knelt down and shook her shoulder until she opened one eye blearily. "It can't already be time to wake up?" She complained, a disappointed look passing over her face that made Peeta laugh.
"I'm sorry, sleeping beauty." He winked at her. "But yes. So move!"
She got up a little groggily but soon livened up when she saw the weather conditions had improved a bit, the sun peeking out through cracks in the clouds. How long would it be until that was changed? Not even the weather here was predictable and certain, it was subject to change at the flick of a switch or the press of a button. The only thing the Careers could do was try and keep with the viewers busy before the Gamemakers were forced to do something drastic to create the interest.
They'd sure created enough interest last night, Peeta thought nervously to himself. He'd let himself forget about the outside world when he'd kissed Cato. By now, that brief moment between the two that had felt so private at the time was sure to have been played out across every screen in Panem.
What would his parents think? Not even just about Cato - what would his parents think about his supposed ruthlessness in terms of killing tributes, hunting them down like they were prey and laughing as their faces were projected into the night's sky alongside the anthem. Would his parents realise that this was all a part of his act, his bid for sponsors and survival? He didn't know.
One thing was certain, though: the people back in Twelve would be disapproving of his alliance with the Careers, never mind his acting like one of them. From behind their screens in the warm and welcome comfort of their own homes, it's difficult for them to understand. This was a game of survival. If he didn't survive, why would what they thought even matter?
About an hour after waking, there was still no sign of Cato. Peeta was beginning to worry, pacing up and down the clearing in between their tent and the small fire. He sighed once, then once again. Clove was pointedly ignoring him, sharpening her knives by the fireside. Marvel was away from the camp doing… something. Peeta didn't know what, and he hadn't bothered to ask.
The boy from Three was crouched down near their supplies, fiddling around in the dirt with a complex looking circuit. Sensing he was under scrutiny, the boy turned to Peeta, his eyes wide and nervous looking. "They're almost done," he called over meekly, as if he had to assure the other boy that he was doing his job properly.
"Good, it's nice to see that at least someone is working today." The voice came from behind him, and Peeta jumped. Spinning around, he saw Cato leaning causally against a tree, eyes focused on the young boy as he steadily avoided Peeta's gaze.
Maybe he did remember, then.
"Where were you?" Peeta demanded, unable to prevent the accusatory tone from lacing the question. "Why didn't you at least tell someone where you were going before you just took off like that?"
"You were asleep, I didn't want to wake you up." Cato shrugged, still not meeting the other boy's eyes. "I just went to wash and cool off in the river a little."
"Have you forgotten that you were stung by tracker jackers just yesterday?" Peeta snapped back, suddenly angry. "What if you'd passed out down there and got yourself killed? What would we have done then, huh? You'd be dead and there would've been nothing I could do to save you because you didn't tell me where you were going!"
"I don't need to be saved by you!" Cato spat, glaring in the vague direction of the other boy. "In fact, it's none of your concern whether I die or not. I'm just your ally. Well, for now I am anyway, but that's not going to last, is it?" He looked furious. "Do I need to remind you that this is a competition? If I had died, you'd have been grateful that you didn't have to be the one who finished me off and that would be it!"
"So you think it's okay to put yourself in dangerous positions just to prove a point? I know that we are nothing more than allies, so there was no need to do that. You're ridiculous. If you'd died out there, I swear I would've-"
"Well, I didn't die, so drop it!" Cato interrupted him, cutting him off before he could finish his sentence. Then he finally let himself look at the other boy. Peeta was flushed pink in anger, jaw clenched and eyes confused. He looked like he was lost.
At the fireside, Clove had set her knives aside and was watching the two of them carefully. Their friendship seemed to swing back and forth like a pendulum, and the calm was always short lived before the full circle swung around again. Neither of them could get control but they struggled for it anyway, fighting one minute and caring the next, hoping that somehow it would work out for them in the end.
These were The Hunger Games, though. In this arena, nothing ever goes according to plan.
"I'm going hunting," Peeta announced after a minute of frosty silence, the two of them simply staring each other down. He reached down for one of the heavy silver swords, gripping the hilt hard enough that the jagged metal left grazes across his palm. "Alone." He added firmly when Clove got to her feet, silently slipping her knife into her pocket, preparing to follow him.
She frowned at him, confused, and he wanted to tell her that he just needed some space, needed some time to think, needed to get away and clear his head for a little while. He couldn't, though. Not with Cato watching. Not with the sponsors watching. Not with the whole of Panem watching. So he just shook his head at her, hoping she'd understand as he turned and made his way off into the woods.
"Don't you think that's a little hypocritical?" Cato called after his back, and Peeta pointedly ignored him.
He stormed through some of the trees at first, hunting taking a back seat to anger. He carried on for a while to simply let off steam, glaring at the trees and grass as if they had personally offended him. He cursed himself inwardly over and over about showing affection toward Cato who obviously didn't care enough to even let him know what he was doing.
However, sometime in the next fifteen minutes, as he was calming down, he began to doubt his anger. On reflection, maybe he had been a touch overdramatic and maybe he'd overreacted slightly. Of course, it wasn't particularly his fault. He couldn't help it, he was under a lot of pressure in the arena. Half the time he didn't even understand what was going on. When everyone was together, things started to get muddled up in his mind, his priorities constantly shifting.
Alone out there in the woods, everything seemed much simpler. Fight, don't die, and then win. That's all this was really about. Sometimes it was easy to lose focus of that.
Peeta had been away from the camp for a couple of hours now, and was still empty handed. He hadn't understood how difficult hunting really was until he was out there himself. Now he knew that he'd never given Katniss quite enough credit for her skills in this field, and he was regretting never sitting her down and asking her for tips while he still had the chance, back before they needed to kill each other.
In theory it had seemed simple enough. Sneak up on the animal and stab them, slice them up a bit and then cook them. Easy, right? But he hadn't taken into account how stealthy the animals were, or the fact that every single one of them here seemed to be blessed with some sort of superhuman hearing which alerted them to his presence each time he got close.
While he knew he should probably just give up and go back, his pride wouldn't let him. The others would surely laugh if he came back from his supposed hunt without anything to show for his efforts. He'd go back to being a joke to them, Clove and Cato and Marvel. He couldn't let that happen.
Peeta stood still for a while, deciding to try a new tactic. He wouldn't rush this. Glancing around, he took note of everything around him; the thick clump of grass to his left, the solid bark of the trees to his right and the sharp dip in the ground at the rabbit hole that lay adjacent to them. Wait, what? He paused, blinked, half expecting it to disappear. It didn't.
Maybe he should have tried actually looking a little sooner.
He crept towards the hole, sword raised, ready to attack. Peering into it cautiously, his eyes were met with a pair of wide brown ones, a twitching nose and a set of quivering whiskers. Peeta wondered when everyone and everything had come to fear him so much. The rabbit blinked at him and he blinked back, each of them waiting for the other to make the first move.
Just as the rabbit darted out, Peeta drove his heavy sword into the ground, spearing it straight through its middle. Skewered on the blade, its little head flopped to one side and its once alert ears drooped down. Peeta half expected to hear the sound of the cannon.
Pulling the lifeless body from his weapon, he cleaned that quickly in the grass. Blood oozed out onto his hand and he tried his best to ignore it, gripping the rabbit by its ears and letting the body dangle down beside him as he headed back to the camp.
He had accumulated a few more rabbits on his journey back. It was easy now that he knew how to catch them. By the time he reached the clearing, he carried two in each hand. This would be the best meal they'd had since they arrived in the arena. He'd also collected some more leaves to help attend to Cato's stings, a sort of apology for their argument earlier.
The boy from Three was the first to spot him, waving shyly to him from the mouth of the tent. Peeta smiled and waved back, the bodies of the rabbits thumping into each other with the swift back-and-forth motion of his hand. Striding over to the fire where Clove and Cato sat hunched together and conversing in low murmurs, he dropped bodies at their feet.
At this, Cato's head snapped up instantly, his furious gaze locking on Peeta. "Where the hell do you think you've been?" he demanded, rising to his feet and slamming a palm into the other boy's chest, hard. "You leave for hours on end and then just waltz back here with some fucking rabbits and expect everything to be okay?"
Peeta was taken aback because Cato was right. He had assumed that everything would be fine. Hadn't this been the exact same argument they had earlier? Except this time he was on the other side of the fight. He was the one in the wrong, the one who had walked away rather than dealing with the problems between them.
"Don't you think that's a little hypocritical?" Peeta murmured back, watching the other boy closely for his reaction to having his own words thrown back in his face. Cato looked like he'd been punched in the face.
Across from them, Marvel snorted. "You two waste so much time arguing with each other, it's like you forget why we're actually here. Stop getting so sentimental over all this. At this rate, you're both going to die anyway because you'll be too busy crying over each other to notice that someone's about to kill you."
He chuckled at this but none of the others joined in. The sound of his obnoxious laughter echoed around the silent clearing for a moment. Cato just looked at him.
"Was that a fucking threat, Marvel?" He spoke quietly, almost softly. "Do you want to do this right now? Is that what you want? Because I swear, I will end you if you don't learn to show a little respect. I'll break your neck right here."
Looking around for his spear, which lay on the other side of camp, Marvel knew that he wouldn't have time to recover it before Cato killed him. He was by far the weaker of the two, and he knew that he didn't stand a chance without it.
"Calm down, princess, that's not what I meant." He replied quickly, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender. Cato growled at the nickname, his face turning a burning shade of crimson. Peeta didn't doubt that in that moment, he'd have happily snapped Marvel's neck. He could have easily done it, too.
Clove was still sat by the fire but for once she looked like she didn't know what to say to Cato to calm him down. It was obvious that she didn't like Marvel either – his constant jibes had grown increasingly tiresome since Glimmer had died and there was no one left to pretend that he was funny.
"This is stupid," Peeta declared, pushing his way in between the two boys. "Quit fighting, we're meant to be an alliance. I brought home dinner, let's just eat it and calm down a little."
Marvel seemed to relax at this, nodding his head in agreement. Cato did the opposite, his stature becoming rigid as he glared at Peeta. "I don't want any of your fucking dinner."
"Cato," Clove began cautiously, standing and placing a soothing hand on his arm. "C'mon. Don't be like that. You need to eat."
The boy just shrugged her off then kicked out at the spit that stood over the fire, the wood splintering then snapping entirely beneath this boots. "I said I don't fucking want any. Leave me the fuck alone, Clove."
With that he stormed off towards the tent. The boy from Three scrambled frantically out of his way when he approached, darting out from behind the flap and straight to Clove's right hand side where he felt safest. She smiled at him a little.
"Want to help me cut up the rabbits?" she asked softly, and he nodded, gnawing down on his lip uncertainly. "Okay. Peeta, can you and Marvel make another spit or something? We'll need it to cook these." At this, she gestured to the dead rabbits.
The two exchanged an uneasy look. It was obvious that neither of the boys particularly wanted to work together, but they both nodded in agreement anyway. They knew better by now than to get on the wrong side of Clove.
That night when the anthem sounded, the skies revealed that no tributes had fallen. This meant that Katniss, Rue, Thresh, Foxface and one other were all still out there, still fighting for their lives. Peeta sighed heavily. Clove sat beside him, legs crossed beneath her as she twisted her long brown hair into a braid. She was just trying to distract herself.
Marvel and the boy from Three had retired early, leaving the other two to guard for at least the first part of the night. Peeta found it almost funny how Marvel hadn't taken watch a single night since they'd been here, a sure sign that no one trusted him not to try and stab them in their sleep. Cato hadn't reemerged from the tent when they called him out for dinner, so now his chunk of the meat sat wrapped in leaves by the fireside, ready for whenever he decided to stop sulking and came out.
"He'll come around, you know," Clove said, her eyes watching the fire dance across the burning branches. Peeta turned to look at her quizzically. "Cato, I mean." She clarified. "He'll come around. He was just worried, and he doesn't know how to deal with that. He's not used to actually caring."
He boy sighed. "I don't think that's it."
"Are you doubting me?" Clove teased, pretending to be indignant, and Peeta laughed a little for the first time in a while, shaking his head. "Look, you can't forget what situation we're in here. He's just scared, for you and for me and for himself and he's scared about what this means for all of us. The reality is that we're not all going to go home. We can't. That's why he's so scared. He doesn't know what to do any more."
"How do you know all this?" the boy asked. "Did he tell you?" Somehow he couldn't imagine Cato opening up and admitting to that, especially not when he knew that sponsors could be watching. Clove shook her head.
"No, but I can make a pretty good guess. I understand him." She shrugged. "He doesn't need to tell me things for me to know them." At this she shot Peeta a small smirk, one that brought a blush to his cheeks. He wondered if she knew what happened the night before. Probably, but he'd rather pretend that she was just bluffing than try to deny it then ending up saying something incriminating.
Silence settled in again, each of them losing themselves in their own thoughts.
"The kid from Three finished the mines today." Clove told him after a while. "He did it while you were out. I was expecting them not to work, but he set up a test one and it exploded perfectly, a real blast. I can't believe how clever he is for a little boy so young."
"We're all young." Peeta replied sadly. "I guess this means we don't have any use for him anymore, right?"
The girl beside him nodded back. That meant they'd be killing him sometime soon. Peeta didn't really know what to say. It was obvious that she liked the kid. In another time, another place, she'd do anything to protect him. But she couldn't, and there's no consolation for that.
"Are you scared?" Peeta whispered, reaching out and lacing their fingers together carefully, giving them a slight squeeze. Clove stared back at him, a small smile on her face as she returned the gesture.
"Of course I am."
Hours passed, the moon tracing a silvery path across the clear sky as it climbed its way higher into the night. The two sat together quietly, close to the fire and close to each other so that Peeta wouldn't feel the chill. They'd stopped trying to talk to each other a little while ago, finding it easier to just co-exist side by side than to force a conversation.
"I think it's time you traded shifts," Clove spoke softy. "I'm going to go and wake Marvel and ask him to help me keep watch tonight." He was about to protest that he was fine, he could do this, but she cut him off. "Peeta, I think you should talk to Cato."
He bit his lip then nodded, thinking about the fresh leaves he'd collected for the boy. As far as he could tell, Cato hadn't treated his stings all day. He was probably in quite a lot of pain right now. As Clove disappeared into the tent, Peeta went and picked up Cato's meal from earlier, figuring that he was probably hungry as well as aching. Somehow he couldn't help but blame himself for this. After all, he was the one supposed to be taking care of him.
A minute later, Marvel and Clove reappeared. The boy looked resentful at having to miss a night's sleep, glaring at Peeta as the other boy slipped into the tent in his place. Inside, Cato was awake. He lay on his back staring up at the roof of the tent, breathing shallow. As if he could sense that it was Peeta that had just entered, he made a point not to look around.
The boy from Three was asleep on completely the opposite side of the tent, clearly as far away from Cato as he could possibly get in the small amount of space available. This left a wide gap between their bodies, one that allowed Peeta to lower himself down at Cato's side.
"Hey Cato," he muttered, not really expecting a response. "Look, I know you're annoyed with me, but for what it's worth I want to tell you I'm sorry." The other boy continued to stare up at the ceiling. Cautiously, Peeta let his hand drop to Cato's arm, a part where one of the stings had lodged itself inside and grown swollen. His fingers stroked over the angry red skin lightly. Cato jerked away.
"Don't be like that," the other boy pleaded. "C'mon, they must be hurting like hell. At least let me change your leaves. I know it won't mean that you forgive me or anything but please, just let me do this for you." There was a pause. "Please?"
Cato sighed, biting his lip then nodding. It was only because he was in pain that he agreed. He sat up, shifting around so that his back was to the younger boy, even though they both knew that the stings littered the front of his torso as well as the back.
Peeta carefully placed his hands at the bottom of the boy's shirt, fingering the hemline. "Do you mind if I, uh…" he tugged gently at the cotton in an upwards motion, indicating that he needed to take it off to treat the skin effectively. Almost imperceptibly Cato shook his head, even lifting his arms to allow the other to tug the material over his head.
The skin beneath it was splattered with ugly purplish-red blotches and the crumbled remains of yesterday's leaves. Peeta carefully peeled them back, replacing them with fresh ones as quickly as he could, trying hard not to touch Cato unnecessarily as he did so. As soon as he was finished, he handed the other boy back his shirt, watching as he pulled it back on and lay down exactly as he was before Peeta had interrupted him, fixing his gaze back to the crumpled material of the tent as if it were a work of art.
"I understand that you're angry at me, but please don't stay mad for too long." Peeta begged him softly. "I'd miss you." He leant down, gently pressing his lips to Cato's forehead. When he drew back, he noticed that the other boy's cheeks had turned a faint pink colour and he was back to avoiding eye contact. He didn't punch Peeta, though. That was a start.
Clearing his throat, the boy backed away again, putting a decent amount of space between them again. "I, uh… I brought you some food. In case you're hungry. I'll just leave that here."
With that, he backed out of the tent, fighting down the wave of disappointment he felt when Cato didn't try to stop him from going. Back out in the chilly air of the night, he decided that he'd keep Marvel company on his watch and let Clove get some sleep. Get out of the tent for a while, try to steady his reeling mind.
It's not like he'd be able to fall asleep anyway, even if he tried. Not after that.
A/N: Hey guys! Just to say a huge thank you to everyone reviewing! This is probably going to be the last update for a while (until the weekend, at least) as we are both really busy with exams. We'd really, really love to know what you think of this one, so please do let us know!
