Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games.
It's not supposed to become a ritual. It's not supposed to become a habit. What it's supposed to be is an anomaly, an irritation that will hopefully fade from her mind in time. He's never supposed to walk home with her, never supposed to walk anywhere with her again. But then again she's supposed to be training alone. She's supposed to be invisible. Cato has a way of fucking things up, a way that Clove would almost find admirable if the consequences were not so often connected to her. Like they are now.
Clove regards the sword in her hand with no small amount of hostility. For all of its forcefulness, all of its size, she can't muster the same feeling of pure empowered pleasure that the possession of a knife brings to her so effortlessly. This sword may actually be the right length for a figure of her petite nature to handle, but it still feels wrong in her grip. Unnatural.
It hadn't been her first choice, of course. She'd gravitated, upon entering the gym that Monday morning, towards the case of knives so familiar to her - and found that magnetic pull stunted by Calliope. Really, she can hardly remember the last time that she received any positive news from her trainer. Who insisted that she train with a partner. Who mandated that that partner be Cato. Who redirected her over to the selection of swords, claiming that it would benefit her to develop greater versatility with weapons.
Right. Spend several years yelling at trainees about the importance of specialization - an understandable insistence, considering that the hunger games tributes with a trademark weapon routinely seem to prove the most memorable - and then reprimand them for not having a better range. Clove rolls her eyes. Because that makes so much sense.
Cato saunters over to their designated area of the gym, interrupting her introspection. It's striking how at ease he looks with his sword. He carries it as if it's just another limb on his body, not a separate entity at all, but something essential, something that should have been connected to him from birth. She imagines that she does not look so very different when holding a knife.
"You're screwed if the best strategy you can come up with is glaring at your sword." Cato smirks at her. "Believe it or not, that typically doesn't help."
She looks up at him sweetly. "You mean as you proved so clearly last week with the hole you tried to bore through your knife?" An attempt that had, not surprisingly, done absolutely nothing to improve his knife-throwing abilities.
A feral grin is the only response she receives. It speaks volumes. It speaks of his numerous failed efforts with her knives, the varied taunts she'd thrown at him.
Your turn.
And it is, as it turns out, her turn. To lose. Repeatedly.
The title of "cafeteria" is not an entirely apt name for the room on which the Academy bestows it. But since "room with a bunch of tables crammed into it" would be neither a practical nor a particularly attractive name, it has to do.
The plate of lunch sitting before her on the small circular table - that, like Medea, although technically public property, has become indisputably hers and, as such, open to no one else - presents nothing that she has any desire whatsoever to eat. It's the same lunch that she eats almost daily, enjoys consistently, and all it takes right now is a look at the familiar salad for her to grow nauseous. That's not saying much, though. Clove is fairly certain that even the sight of one of the chocolate bars she keeps stocked in her room would sicken her at the moment.
Her eyes, filled with frigid acid, flit over to him, his crowded table, the gratingly brash sound of his voice.
It would be a lie to say that Cato's victories in general are responsible for stirring such a fierce hatred in her. She actually finds them rather amusing, most of the time. The dark haired boy whose blood he'd been so intent on drawing the week before walks by her table and she can't help but think that, even if she hadn't had a hand in overpowering him, his defeat might have been satisfying to watch. Satisfying because she had beat Cato before. Because this massive figure had failed where she had succeeded. Which, really, meant that Cato's victory was her own.
So, it's not Cato's ability to win that leave her so agitated, that leaves her fingers wrapped around her fork in such a tense, strangling grasp that it would go limp and blue from the pressure were it a human neck rather than a utensil. Just the fact that he won against her. Several times. And that it will probably happen again when they return to the gym in less than a half hour.
The irony doesn't fail to strike her. That when she picks up a sword, vulnerability seems to jump into her arms as well. With its blunt mass and keen sharpness, the blade should make her feel more powerful than even a knife. It would be the most logical way of making up for her unimpressive size.
And yet she's never felt less natural, less lithe, than when handling Cato's favorite weapon.
A leaf of lettuce receives the stab wound she's failed to inflict on him that day.
Busy as she is attempting the murder of her salad, Clove misses the way that Gregoric's eyes linger on her, the way that Cato's posture loses some of its idle satisfaction.
The padded floor of the gym should be more heavily padded. This is the impression that Clove garners as her body thuds against it for what feels like the hundredth time that day, Cato's victorious figure looming above her with his sword to her chest, her own knocked aside by the force of his last blow.
She holds back a grimace at the ache biting at her back, cinching her lips closed. His bright blue eyes fix down upon her defeated form as if waiting for some sort of acknowledgement of his triumph.
Gaze blank. Mouth tight. Muscles stiff. It's not happening.
Her breath catches as he lazily maneuvers the tip of his sword from its place over her chest to her neck; he teases it in a soft drag along her collar bone, too lightly to draw blood but too closely to allow for any delusion of innocuousness. A forcefully suppressed shiver gnaws at her skin in response to the blade's cool pressure. Icicles seem to form in the path it leaves against the flushed pink surface of her sweat covered, exertion-heated skin.
"You know," he says from above her, his casual voice leaving her with the desire to lash out and tear her bared teeth into any part of him she can reach, "most people would make some sort of acknowledgement of my handiness with a sword right about now."
She rolls her eyes. "Let me guess. I should start referring to you as master of the universe?"
He smirks. "No need to go to extremes. Just master would be fine."
Clove is fairly certain that she likes him more when he's murderously angry. At least then he's usually too busy snarling or growling or swearing to form coherent sentences. Ignoring the sword point still pressing butterfly kisses against her neck, she pushes up onto her feet. The blade's tip nicks her slightly in the process, leaving behind a thin mark of red; she's unsure of whether her movement was simply to sudden for him to adjust to suitably or if the mark was left purposefully. If he's like her. If he enjoys seeing proof of his triumphs.
Judging by the smug tilt that takes hold of his mouth as he regards the pathetic wound, she'd be willing to bet on the latter. His smugness, however, mutates into suspicion as she dons a sweet, if thin-lipped, smile. It takes effort, furious and humiliated as she is, to calm herself so, but she manages. Clove is nothing if not able to take on the appearance of collection.
"I think you know better than to delude yourself into thinking that will happen. Ever." Leaning down, she picks up her lost weapon. "I'll give you that you're good with a sword, though."
Blunt suspicion. He practically emanates the emotion. That's something at least. Not a month ago, she'd have assumed that his ego was too inflated to recognize a counterfeit compliment.
"It must be nice," she continues, playing at innocence. "Being able to use that big, hard blade." Clove comes as close to giggling as she is physically able. Which isn't, as it turns out, very close at all (actually, it's a barely in a mile's radius). "Doesn't seem at all like something that someone would do to… I don't know. Overcompensate."
The gratification of having a companion in her rage is immediate. He grounds out, "Believe me, I don't have to overcompensate for anything."
"Right. Of course not."
Eager to secure her words a position as the last spoken between them, she turns around to return her sword to its wall. Lips quirking, she can't help but consider the poetry of the moment when a nearby timer chimes, signaling the end of the training day. Gruff fingers curl around her wrist, twisting her back around. Of course. What would Cato know about poetry.
His cerulean eyes are still bright as they gleam down at her from his tall stature, but in a manner altered from their glow of conquest. They're darker now. Harder. And, somewhat alarmingly, tautly amused.
"Careful, little girl. Don't start games you're not ready to play."
Oh, please. She tears her arm out of his grip, expending no small amount of energy to do so. "Somehow, I'm not worried."
This time she manages to stalk away, leaving the glaring boy behind, and retreating into her beloved solitude.
Or that's how things should happen.
Cato's never been much of a fan of Mondays, but he's willing to make an exception for this one. Scanning her retreating form, he regards Clove with no small amount of amusement. For such a lethal girl, she's fucking terrible with a sword.
His feet are already thudding after her in the direction of the sword station when someone, bronze haired, muscular, and entirely familiar falls into step with him.
"She looked pissed," Achates notes with a nod in Clove's direction.
Cato smirks at the sight of the scowling girl who currently looks to be threatening to stab a scrawny, altogether pathetically built boy who accidentally stepped on her foot.
There are at least three trainers in a yard's distance but the boy looks worried. Cato considers this with a quick shrug. Probably for good reason.
Still, he waves away his friend's observation. "Clove's always pissed."
"Yeah, you seem to have a real talent for setting her off." The grin tugging at his lips is the only indication that Achates has not suddenly become deadly serious as he puts a hand on Cato's shoulder. "We should talk about these suicidal impulses of yours at some point, man."
Cato throws the hand off, shaking his head before pausing. The burgeoning chuckle dies in his throat.
Gregoric, in the last minute, had fallen into step with Clove. His jaw clenches as Rex's words, although as idiotic as everything else that departs from his mouth, tease the fringes of his mind, throw themselves front and center. Cato already knew that Gregoric wanted her as a training partner. He just didn't plan on Clove being this fucking furious at him when he approached her. Gregoric clearly did.
Cato doesn't bother to say anything more before pounding away towards them.
To Cato's credit, he is, surprisingly, not the next one to disturb her. As she restores her sword to its place, Clove feels a large figure move beside her. His proximity, although annoying, fails to strike her at first, clustered as the groups of other sword-borrowing trainees are around the blades' home. It's not until she realizes that he's moving with her towards the wall against which she left her gym bag that she chooses to expend the energy necessary to examine him. Clove shifts her gaze over to him wearily as she reaches down to retrieve her water bottle. Her fingers curl around its coldness as she brings it down to the pulse of her wrist in an attempt to cool herself.
She keeps staring at him, a dark haired boy she recognizes as Cato's dagger glaring opponent from the other day, Gregoric, but refuses to say anything. He's the one who's invaded her space. If he's looking to prolong the encounter - God, she hopes not - he'll have to do so himself. Honestly, from the way he's looking at her, expectant and distinctly arrogant, it's not hard to tell that he thinks she should be falling over herself to make conversation with him. As if she needs another sword-using, smirk-wearing idiot to deal with.
Finally seeming to realize that Clove has no inclination whatsoever to call her vocal chords into use, he speaks. "Hey there," he says, flashing her a grin that she thinks too generic to pass as charming. "I don't think we've met. My-"
"We have," she cuts him off, her words as sharp as one of her beloved knives. "Last Friday." Bringing the bottle up to her lips, she takes a long gulp of its contents before continuing. "You might remember. Cato and I were kicking your ass at the time."
"I remember." Irritation plays briefly on his face before he covers it with a grin. "I just thought I'd introduce myself." He extends his hand, not offering it, but simply grabbing at her own with his fingers, leaving her with no other choice than to shake the proffered appendage. "Gregoric Aldrin."
Clove makes sure to scrape her sharp fingernails against the tender flesh of his palm when she frees her hand. "Oh, believe me," she says, her voice sugarcoated. "I've already gotten all the introduction I need."
It's more blatant on his features now, the aggravation. His grin is gone, grounded away into a scowl, and his fists are clenched, one of them around the hilt of the sword that he didn't bother to put away, having opted, apparently, to stalk her instead. He seems to be thick enough to think that it will intimidate her. Which is just moronic, really, since it's not as though he could get away with using it on her right now.
The corners of his lips plunge even lower when a set of thudding footsteps alert them to another incoming figure. It alarms her slightly that, with all the time she's spent with Cato in the last few weeks, the cadence of his walk alone is more than enough to inform her of his identity.
"Aldrin," he nods. Crossing her arms, Clove rolls her eyes. Of course he too would still be holding a sword. She had been - mostly - joking when she'd suggested that his predilection for large weaponry was rooted in some deficit in masculinity. As anti-social as she may be, after all, she's neither deaf nor ignorant, and it's not any hushed secret that Cato has slept with most of the girls in their level, that he's beaten most of the males into bloody mockeries. Now, though, as she looks between the two boys, she's less certain. Maybe it is all testosterone induced.
Gregoric shoots him a smile identical to the bullshit one he'd given her earlier, save for the hints of malice that crack through his current expression. "You need something, Ludwig?"
Cato doesn't bother with the false grin, nor with the flimsy attempt at pleasantries. Actually, he doesn't bother to respond to Gregoric at all. He simply turns to Clove. "You ready?"
She stares. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
One of his light eyebrows arches. "I'm walking you home."
Apparently, he's not bothering with honesty at the moment either. Clove opens her mouth to protest, but finds him slinging her bag over his shoulder and pulling her away from Gregoric before she can manage.
"No, you're not," she hisses, attempting to yank her arm out of his grasp. Cato ignores her, putting away his sword before continuing to drag her out of the room - which doesn't actually take much effort, considering that Clove has, for the moment, stopped fighting and feigned consent. The last thing she needs after Cato's stream of very visible victories in their last several fights is to appear weak, to demonstrate to the entire room that her training partner has an infuriating habit of grabbing her whenever pleases and that she doesn't always have the physical strength to shake him off with immediate ease. So she dons her practiced look of collection.
Until they're outside.
Mustering all of the force that she can, Clove frees herself from his grip. "I swear, if you grab me one more time, I will cut your hand off." Or maybe his fingers, one by one, just to prolong the experience.
He ignores her threat, likely too focused on growling to register the words. "What did he say to you?"
"Oh, we had a nice chat about the latest fashion trends in the Capitol," she spats with sarcasm before reverting to her normal, albeit enraged, tone. "What do you think we talked about. Nothing. He literally said nothing."
This fails to convince Cato. "Nothing doesn't usually require words."
Or maybe she'll just slice his fingers off for the fun of it. She crosses her arms. "I don't see how this concerns you at all." The syllables fall from her lips with a forced indolence that does nothing to improve Cato's mood.
He snaps in every sense of the word, his features contorting into a scarlet rage. "If you're going to request a fucking partner transfer, it concerns me."
Confusion momentarily overpowers Clove's severe irritation. "If I'm - I - what the hell are you talking about?" It's official, Clove thinks. Cato's stupidity has rendered her utterly stupid.
Thankfully, her blatant bewilderment seems to break through his illogical fury. "He wants you as a training partner," he says, his suddenly emotionless voice a stark contrast to his former rage.
Clove regards him with disbelief. "And you thought I would just go along with that?" He opens his mouth to respond, futilely as it turns out, since she isn't anywhere near finished. "That I can't handle you?" she demands. "That I would need to downgrade to the moron that you beat in a fight less than a week ago?" Hardly aware of herself, she claws her fingernails against into the rigidness of his right cheekbone, wreaking a thin crevice of blood into his skin. "You can call me 'little girl' all you want, but I'm not that fucking weak!" She's not weak. He might have destroyed her today, proven her sword skills to be pathetic, but she is not weak. She's not weaker than him. She's not. Clove exhales deeply as she lowers the hand, which had, to that point, remained dangling in midair near his face. Most people are, she'll admit, but not her. She refusesto be.
Cato remains silent for a moment after that. He wipes away the streaming tear of blood which mars the otherwise bronzed hue of his face absentmindedly. Clove hardly realizes that her own fingertips have begun tracing the mark left by his sword on the flesh right below her collarbone as others might play with a pendant. Her fury, intense in fervor if not volume, given that her voice never rose above a low, heated hiss, at least succeeded in abating some of the anger that had spent the majority of the day building its way up through her, infecting her blood, clouding her eyesight. The calm that washes through her now is refreshingly genuine. Left sober, her intoxicating anger having dissipated, she wonders if he'll strike her. Almost hopes he will.
He stole her control, stripped her down to a nude mess of rage. The last thing she wants is to see him respond with her stoicism.
When he finally does react, she can't help but roll her eyes. Of course. She should have known that he'd opt for his own trademark. A fetus smirk grows before her eyes over Cato's formerly blank features. "Gregoric would be a downgrade, wouldn't he."
Clove stares at him, unable to decide whether she should be relieved or disgusted. "Really?" she asks incredulously. "Out of everything I just said, that's what you're going to focus on?"
As a note of seriousness tempers his smirk, she knows that she should feel assuaged, glad to watch the evidence of his satisfaction with her little break down fall away from his face. She doesn't.
Tension immediately takes hold of her body, her arms, her legs, her spine, when he cranes his head down near her own. "Don't you think," his breath warms her left earlobe, "that if I thought you were weak, I'd be looking to give you to Gregoric?"
She's fairly certain that it would require less exertion for her to run ten miles than to remain as still as she forces herself to right then.
Don't back away.
So she snaps at him instead. "I would never let anyone just give-"
"Believe me, little girl," he continues, ignoring her completely, "if I thought you were weak, I wouldn't bother with you."
The words should revolt her. Clove can't think of a time that someone has ever spoken to her so objectifying (actually, she can't even think of anyone else who would).
And yet they don't leave her with any desire to dismember the blonde in front of her limb by limb. Strange.
He grins then and she's relieved to feel him pull back to his former distance. "I mean, you're weaker than me, but I wouldn't worry too much about that. Just about everyone is."
And it's back. In spades.
"Whatever you need to think to sleep at night," she replies sweetly before extending her arm out to grab at the strap of her bag. "Now, give me my bag. I'm leaving." Hanging off his shoulder, it seems to tease her. Clove grits her teeth as she reaches up, spending an embarrassing amount of muscle energy to attempt to yank it off of his shoulder - and then, just as her finger tips manage to finally brush the sack's surface, he shrugs away.
He raises an eyebrow at her that speaks of more smugness than confusion. "Walking you home, remember?"
"No. You're really not." Resting against her sides, her fists clench and unclench, longing more than anything for a knife. She can picture how it would feel in her hand, how the light would skate across its shiny blade. The slickness of Cato's warm blood crimson against its surface.
He begins walking away, her bag undulating against his back with each sauntered step.
Clove grits her teeth. He's not.
He does, of course, end up walking her home. Cato grins as he watches Clove and her burning resentment retreat through her front door. Lingering there, in front of her dried-out green yard, he allows his grin to grow. It's almost entertaining how deeply his presence seems to stir her temper. Satisfying, even.
Moving away a few moments later, Cato strokes the scratch her desperate, frenzied fingernails had wrenched into his face earlier. Frenzied. She doesn't seem like the type to have ever been frenzied in her life; never has been, in front of him. He's seen her violent, sure. Angry, plenty. Annoyed, most of the time. Her blood-seeking nails, though, were the first indication that he'd ever received that his training partner even could loose control, that the little girl could break, could shatter like glass into shards more dangerous than their original, untouched form.
And he liked it.
If Calliope doesn't let her use a fucking knife this morning, then Clove thinks she might alter her usual sword-fighting lesson plan - 'alter' as in, rather than walking away to find Cato, stabbing her trainer repeatedly in a variety of places, preferably in an equally various number of ways. The image of swiping a blade across Calliope's neck has been wrapping itself into her thoughts all night, all morning, all month, really. The bitch does keep saying that more practice would benefit her. And Clove's fairly certain that, although also grounds for arrest, that would count as a training exercise. Somewhat.
Walking towards her front door, Clove grabs her bag before pulling at her dark chocolate ponytail, raising it, tightening it. She's never been one to put much time into her appearance - not for training, at least, of all things - but she does take care to keep her hair entirely out of her face, daily securing it back in an almost painful hold. Preoccupied as she is with a few wanton strands, it takes her a few seconds longer than it might usually to perceive the figure sprawled lazily across her front porch.
Clove's eyes narrow. This had to be a sick joke. It was that simple. Maybe a punishment of some deranged kind.
Although he must have heard her open the door, must be aware of her arrival, Cato takes his time turning around to greet her scathing look. Nonchalantly, as if he spends every morning lounging on her doorstep, he gathers himself up. "Running late today?"
Scowling so deeply that the plunged ends of her lips are almost in pain, she glares at him. "Leave. Now."
Which, as it turns out, wasn't the best choice of words, considering that they both have to leave at the moment, and to go to the same place. Cato doesn't bother to remind her of this, though. He just clings to her pace, meeting her every stride, leaving her with no other choice but to walk with him.
"Do you have some kind of death wish?" she demands. "Honestly, do you get off on verbal abuse or something?"
Cato smirks. "As if anyone could kill me."
Insane. He is honestly insane. Possibly more so than she is.
Clove walks outside the next morning warily. With good reason. Blonde hair glints before her in the sun.
Apparently, he really does have a death wish.
(Unfortunately, she doesn't think that she'll be able to grant it that morning and still arrive to the Academy on time, so she ends up just walking with instead.)
Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who's been reading this and also to everyone who reviewed the last chapter: TheToothFairy92, Ombre de la Lune, TotalFangirl13, Lexi, clove and cato, Jesus the Gardener, Undulation of Cynical Suicide, Marina, and luvxas37!
I'm really sorry that this chapter took me such a long time to post. For some reason, I had a more difficult time writing it... Actually, I'm still not really sure what I think of it, so, I'd really appreciate any feedback that you might have time to leave. Thanks for reading! :)