Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games.
Clamor and crowds. There's not much that would usually repel Clove so wholly, and, were her mind working more clearly at the moment, that aversion might have been enough to sway her from walking through the front door of the Weld house. A twisted sort of satisfaction contorts her mouth into an expression caught between a grin and a grimace as she throws herself into the noise and claustrophobia. A more introspection-prone night might have forced Clove to acknowledge that it's easier to distract herself with such superficial horrors, that they take less energy to hate than - yougotthatfromme-whywouldtheychooseyou - other subjects. None of this stirs her conscious. That would require it to stray from the exhausting task of her cursing her father's existence. All she knows is that the irritated disgust drawn out of her by the sight of her intoxicated peers has an oddly calming effect. Probably something similar to the amputation of a frostbitten toe.
"Watch it," a barely perceptible voice growls through the din. Her lips pull themselves into a small, cruel smile. So does stomping on any oafish feet that happen to hinder her path.
The current cramped nature of the house has deeper roots in the popularity of the party than in any paucity of size possessed by its walls, its rooms. The home actually appears quite large. Clove would even call it luxurious, an observation that her high standards don't allow her to make lightly. Fastidious or not, though, the opulent décor, the ornate rugs and spanning staircases, visible in the front hall doesn't allow for much denial.
Walking aimlessly along the long hallways that opens from the foyer, Clove's breathing remains short and heavy. Heavier still once a piercing peal of tingling giggles reaches her ears. Out of all the sounds in existence, she would have to claim that noise as the most grating: those giggles full of sweetness and sugar and genuineness that greet her once she successfully jostles her way into a large lounge-like looking room. They resound, undoubtedly, from a variety of sources in the packed space, but from none as flagrantly as the pink folds of Andie Weld's lips.
The fact that Clove has never conversed with Andromeda speaks more of the petite brunette's extreme misanthropy than of any hostility or intended neglect from the latter girl. She doubts that the dollish thing even has the capability for either. Aside from her lustrous light locks, wood nymph green eyes, and long - often open - legs, Andie's friendliness has always served as perhaps her most defining features, if only for its rareness among the Academy's pupils.
Clove, needless to say, doesn't suffer from any great inclination to associate with her.
Then again, though, she's never had a particular fondness for parties either, nor any tendency towards reckless behavior.
Buried deep by rage, her sanity screams.
The giggling continues, scratching sporadically at Clove's senses. Breathe. She tries to convince herself that the annoyance should gratify her, that she can at least call it a distraction. She tries to remind herself that every moment she spends cringing at the high-pitched ringing supplies her with a few seconds for which her father's words fade from her head. Breathe. Although the resonance could jar even the most intense of worriers from their thoughts, neither cue works. If anything, they only exacerbate her short breath.
Alcohol, present around the house in no small quantity, tempts her briefly with a short siren call to which Clove quickly deafens her ears. She can't bring herself to fray the few surviving threads of her self-control. No matter how much it would likely help, no matter how thoroughly it would likely soothe away any understanding of her unraveling, she can't bring herself to surrender so.
The giggles pick up again. The desire to march across the room and strangle their spring proves to sing a much more alluring siren song than the liquor had. Stretched as every rigid piece of has become, Clove realizes with some apprehension that she might not actually have it in her to refrain from doing so.
Salvation presents itself in the form of a glass door.
Whether it's due to the thick hostility emanating from her every muscles, a sudden return of her invisibility, or simply a lack of interest on the part of her peers, no one attempts to thwart Clove's path over to what looks to be an outdoor patio with pleasantries.
Chills rein in the air outside, sending shivers along the pale length of Clove's skin and most of the other partygoers who had thought to get a bit of fresh air quickly back into the inebriated noise of the house's interior. Stepping further away from the threshold, she decides not to doom herself to a return so soon. Instead, Clove sets herself down miserably at a small round table that's appeal, admittedly doesn't originate in its size nor its shape, but rather in its emptiness.
A groan passes from her lips when a large and, unfortunately, familiar figure claims the seat adjacent to her. It had been empty, at least.
"I knew you wouldn't be able to resist coming," Gregoric says smugly, opting against a more customary greeting.
Glaring at him, Clove debates the merits of an escape. Her legs end up remaining crossed, the right not moving from its dangling position over the left. There wouldn't be much of a point to leaving, she decides at the end of a silent soliloquy, as, between the eardrum shattering mess inside this house and her father's presence in her own, she honestly can't think of any other place to which she could relocate. It's become perfectly clear that she'll receive a displeasing welcome wherever she ventures. Besides, as distractions go, she supposes that she can't find much better than Gregoric. He almost manages to make claustrophobia look endearing. And all without, to her knowledge, ever needing to giggle.
Her arms cross themselves when he tries to hand her a bland-cup-clad drink indistinguishable save for its alcoholic smell. "I don't drink."
"And here I was hoping to see you let your hair down."
A small smirk creeping onto her face, she reaches up and frees her brunette tresses from their ponytail holder.
He glares at her, apparently not amused by her antics. "I didn't mean quite so literally."
"That's too bad," she says, smiling with faux-innocence, "since this is as close as you're going to get."
Suddenly, his head begins to crane its way closer to hers. "I'm not sure what you're quite clear on the concept of a party."
"Enlighten me, then."
"Well," he drawls through a crooked turn of his mouth, "some people would change out of their training clothes before coming." His eyes dart pointedly to the tank top and shorts that she'd been wearing at the Academy earlier and hadn't even thought to replace. "Then, traditionally, they'd interact with other people and possibly get a drink instead of hiding outside to fucking freeze to death."
She frowns at him. "For someone who claims to know so much about partying, you're not very good at it."
His replying chuckle contains as much frost as the breeze around them. "You did drag yourself here for me. I figured I might as well say hi."
Laughter rips from her chest, deep and surprisingly authentic. She's not certain of the cause, whether it's the idea of her going anywhere for anyone else's sake, let alone for Gregoric's, of all people's, or simply the aftereffects of her conversation with her father, but she can't seem to stop.
Her hysterics earn a dubious look in payment. "Are you sure you're sober?"
Clove might have answered, or might simply have continued laughing for some indeterminable amount of time, had the sound of the patio door swinging open not diverted her attention.
The emergence of two tall golden blondes tempers her frenzy.
So much for solitude, Clove thinks with a cackle marred sigh.
Andie never once considered that Cato's late arrival might have its origins in rudeness. He could easily have arrived the moment that her party began, could, as her neighbor, have gotten there before any guest, but, still, although she doesn't see him until the clock on a nearby wall marks more than an hour after the time at which she'd pleaded with him to come, a wide smile stretches itself across her face at his entrance.
"Cato!"
Doing her best to move towards them, she doesn't notice the way that Cato's shoulders tense at the squealed greeting, nor does she hear his friend Achates snicker from his side.
"That didn't take long," the boy in question's bronze haired friend mutters. "You want me to distract her?"
"Don't bother. She'll track me down eventually."
Andromeda may not demonstrate any prodigious ability at the Academy, but Cato had to grant her an irritating skill for hunting him. Not that it was particularly hard to do so. He rarely attempted inconspicuousness, certainly not when it mattered so little. Cato would hardly have come to a party held at her house if he hadn't been prepared to at least talk to the girl.
"Andie," he acknowledges her with a nod, taking in the Amazon legs that her tight black skirt displays so enterprisingly with no small amount of appreciation.
"I'm so glad that you could come," she says with a warmth that never fails to disturb him slightly. It's not altogether dissimilar to the way that his spike-tongued training partner speaks at times, save for its sincerity.
Busy scanning the area - if he's going to have a fully clothed conversation with Andie, he'll need at least a bit of a buzz - for a cooler, he doesn't bother listening to his own response, let alone to the sentiments that she wastes no time in beginning to gush in turn.
"Cato," a discreet nudge from Achates revives his attention, alerting him to the way that his host's fair eyebrows have drawn together in concern over his apparently poor hearing. "What's your training partner's name again?"
Bemusement overtakes his answer. "Clove?"
She brightens. "That's it! Kind of petite, right? With brown hair and freckles?"
Images of her glaring face trapped just beneath his own in their last hand-to-hand fight flash in his mind. "That's her," he affirms with a jerk of his chin, about to open his mouth to demand a reason for the inquiry when, true to her gregarious nature, Andie explains without a syllable of prompting.
"It's too bad you didn't get here earlier! I really wanted to say hello to her, since, you know, she never seems to come to these things, but I just couldn't think of her name, and thought it would be rude to ask-"
Not bothering to inform her that Clove would likely be much more offended by the mulled over approach than by her ignorance, Cato raises an eyebrow. "Clove is here?" Skepticism paints his words.
Andie nods enthusiastically. "I know, right? Completely unexpected. When Greg mentioned that he invited her, I didn't think for a second that she would actually show up."
"Aldrin invited her," Cato repeats, his voice low enough that only Achates, who, suddenly, has discovered a firm desire to go looking for his latest fling somewhere on the opposite side of the room, can hear the growled sentence.
Biting her lip and revolving her bright woodland green around the room, she says, "Maybe I should say something now… I could have sworn that-Oh! There she is." Nose wrinkling in confusion, her triumph fizzles quickly. "What is she doing outside?" Andie's lithe figure shudders at the mere thought of the frigid night air.
Cato follows her gaze, fist clenching as he catches a glimpse through the patio doors of Gregoric sitting beside a laughing girl that would bare an uncanny resemblance to Clove had his partner even the ability to laugh so unreservedly. Narrowing his eyes, he skims the unbound length of her hair, trying to remember a time that she's ever abandoned her standard ponytail before.
Achates thinks better than to follow them outside.
Clove finds the contrast slightly hilarious. Truly comedic. Their heads look almost identical, gold hair gleaming in the moonlight, but that's as far as the similarity goes. Andie's smiling expression glows as lightly as her long locks, while Cato's grin of greeting contains all the gentleness of a rapid dog. Not exactly twins, Clove thinks, as annoyed by their appearance - Cato, she sees enough of at the Academy and Andromeda, she has no desire to ever see - as she is grateful for the further distraction.
"Now what brings you two lovebirds out here?" Gregoric asks, leaning back in his chair and crossing his elbows out against the back of his skull in a makeshift pillow.
Clove rolls her eyes, unable to think of what on earth he might do with himself when he's not trying his hardest to irk Cato.
"We were just coming out to ask you the same." Clove can't find it within herself to pity Andie, not for the thick naivety that secretes from her every pore, nor for the way that she tries and fails to keep the hurt from showing on her face when Cato shoves her away from him, throwing off the hand that she'd attempted to tangle with his own as though it moonlights as a leech. Still, she attempts to speak with brevity. "Aren't you just shivering?" Denied Cato's warmth, she wraps her arms around herself in a pathetic hug.
Clove looks down at her goose bump flecked flesh disinterestedly. They've gone through enough weather conditioning at the Academy that it seems a bit pointless for everyone to find the cold so repellent. Looking at Cato through the corner of her eye, she sees a smirk settle on his hard-eyed face as he quirks an eyebrow at her. Despite themselves, her lips twitch back in response.
She wonders if he thinks the same way that she does; if he knows that they'd face much worse - whywouldtheychooseyou - in the arena.
Gregoric's reply gears itself towards Andie, but his eyes never shake from Cato's. "Luckily, I have Clove to keep me warm." She nearly chokes in disgust when he attempts to drape an arm around her shoulders. He might have met more success had Clove, smiling as sweetly as ever, not chosen that moment to beat her foot into his under the table. She might not then have had to cinch her lips shut to bar back a yelp of pain had Cato not chosen that moment to yank her out of her chair, handling her as though she was a demonically possessed rag doll.
He mutters some words of dismissal to Andie and Gregoric that Clove's smothering humiliation at the ease with which he plucked her up - whywouldtheychooseyou - prevents her from hearing. Whatever it is, it's said quickly enough, lowly enough, and far enough through the patio door that, called back over his shoulder or not, she highly doubts that either of their abandoned companions managed to catch it.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Clove grits out through her tight lips as he forces their way through the masses. He doesn't acquiesce.
Breath growing harsh, her eyes flicker down to the blade strapped to her leg. She's not in the mood for this, not tonight. Not on a night when she's been pushed far enough over the boundaries of her sanity that she's honestly having trouble remembering why it would rank as a bad idea to pull her knife free from its thigh sheath and proceed to pound it into Cato's throat, his chest, his eyes, his hands. Especially his hands. She'd rip them off, not bothering for efficiency or even precision. She'd relish in a jagged, sloppy slicing job that left his wrists bloody stubs. Unable to hold back screams of pain, he would glare up at her as she worked, as she wore his grin alongside her glee with the knowledge that he'd never grab her again.
Since, however, she sadly can't reach her knife in her current position, his brutal hands remain in tact and curled around her arm down the entire length of the spanning hallway. Even once it ends, even after, with all the gentleness of a porcupine, he pulls her through her a random threshold, Cato doesn't release her.
Furious, she wrenches against his weight until, finally, gaining freedom. Ice clad pupils raging around the room, she takes in her new surroundings before deciding that she might have found the place calming were her every nerve ending not electrified with wrath. It's smaller than an Academy gym, naturally. Its walls can't boast of quite the same width as those of her sanctuary, nor the same height, but they extend down to a similarly padded floor, and hold a familiar array of weapon shelves. Anxious, she quickly locates the knives, only to come upon annoyance with their relative distance and scarcity.
Crossing her sore arms, Clove wrangles apathy into her grip. "If you wanted to train, all you had to do was ask."
His biceps may have more muscles than hers, his body more weight, but Cato at least lacks her composure. "You told me," his says, his voice seething, "that you had no interest in Aldrin."
Her throat suddenly constricted by a fresh wave of anger, it takes her a moment to respond. She won't lose control. Not in front of him. She won't. Still, she can sense it happening. "Don't worry, Cato. You've officially proven yourself to be the bigger jackass out of the two of you. He's no longer any competition."
"Real cute, little girl."
"Actually, Andromeda beat me for that superlative." The retort is no more than a reflex at this point. She knows that. She can feel herself shattering, her control fleeing like from a deflated balloon. Smiling cracking into a glass shard snarl, she claws her nails into his cheek, wishing that the thin streak of blood would satisfy her. Little girl. A little girl with waiflike hands, useless without a weapon. Sure, she can scratch well enough with them, but they'll never snap anyone's neck. Not like his can. Not like her father's can.
"Damn it," she growls as one of his thick eyebrows shrugs at her anger. "Don't you get it? Whether I have an interest in Gregoric or not, whether I want to train with him, fuck him, kill him, blow him, or go to this utterly inane party with him, it's absolutely none of your concern."
His fingers twine around her neck, pinning her to the closest wall. "Wrong."
Arms, thankfully, still at liberty, she manages to reach down to grab her knife, to edge it against his own throat. "No. I'm really not."
He ignores the blade poised to bleed him just as she pays no mind to the clasp that could snap her like a twig. "Believe me, it concerns me."
"Why?" The word comes out in a short pant, no doubt a product of his strangling hold on her.
She might feel worse about the apparent weakness if his tone didn't mirror it so completely. "You're my training partner."
"Thank you very much for the reminder, but I'm not having an identity crisis at the moment," she says, acid soaking each strained exhale. "What I want to know is why you care. Why the fuck does it matter?" Already taut against him, her knife inches its way a bit further into his skin. His irritatingly massive fingers clench around her a bit more tightly, bullying her vocal chords into a submission of silence.
The reply comes instantaneously, incredulously, as though she's the one whose mind never reached any stage of evolution beyond that of a Neanderthal. "It fucking matters," he sneers, "because I always have the best."
She could have berated him for his vaguely objectifying word choice. She could have torn into him for essentially turning her into a trophy. She could even, ready as her weapon sits, have done so in the literal, bloody sense.
Instead, she swings her legs up to straddle him, invoking a strength that her father would claim she lacks to throw Cato down to the floor. Her knife's side dives a fraction deeper into his flesh. Clove takes advantage of her partner's shock to shake her neck free from his prison of a palm, allowing her mouth the first deep breath its had in what feels like hours.
It's not enough. All evening, she hasn't been able to breathe, hasn't been able to think, hasn't been able to break through the fog - whywouldtheychoose-thebest-yougotthatfrom-thebest-wouldn'tsetmyselfonvollun-thebest - that's invaded her mind.
Dropping her knife from its lethal stance, Clove lunges her torso flat against Cato's with less understanding, less foresight, of her actions than she's ever moved with before. Her cells have never known this sort of flammable recklessness that's spent the night permeating her skin. She'll wish later that she'd taken a sip of the drink that Gregoric had offered her. Alcohol would make a convenient scapegoat for this inexplicable idiocy. Drunk as she feels, though, it's some other sort of idiocy altogether that motivates her to sear her lips into those of Cato Ludwig.
Still buried deep, her sanity would continue screaming had it not lost its voice.
Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who's been reading this so far, especially to my amazing reviewers: Ombre de la Lune, HungerGamesHarryPotter7887, GottaLoveMEgan, TheRulerandTheKiller, luvxas37, HungerGamesFan12, Jesus the Gardener, Orange Pudding, fanfictionfan, TheToothFairy92, Frances Odair, ammiewilson, and thatiismahogany. I really appreciate it :)
I'm having a hard time deciding what I think about this chapter, so I'd love to hear any feedback you might have, positive or negative.
Thanks again for reading!