Disclaimer: I do not own THG or any of the characters. In this chapter i used a couple of concepts pretty much word for word from the books (what Gale says after he kisses Katniss for the first time, Katniss's speech in 11, the quote about surviving the games rather than winning them), so I feel I should explicitly point out that they are not my work or ideas.
Warning: Violence, rape/non-con, depression, self-harm, alcohol/drug abuse, mild sexual content, language, suicidal ideation.
Thanks for reading and please review!
Their tour was to begin in 12 and end in the Capitol, and so Brutus and Cato were to travel by train and meet Haymitch and Katniss at the Justice Center.
But they got there early, and Haymitch told them to just come over to his place to wait for Katniss to return to Victor's Village so they could rehearse their speeches.
She and Gale had gone out to hunt and check the traps as usual that morning, and when they had finished, they stood outside the back door of her house, and she was saying it wouldn't be long that she'd be gone, just a few weeks, really, and her mom and Prim would make sure his family had plenty to eat and-
He cut her off by taking her face in his hands and kissing her. She was shocked into returning it. Automatically. Like a reflex.
"I had to do that. At least once," he whispered, and then he left. Her insides were warm and her head was muddled, and she buried her face in the scarf around her neck for a few seconds as she tried to get herself together.
When she looked up it was straight into Cato's cold, unfeeling eyes.
"Well isn't that sweet. Two rats in love."
"Fuck off," she snapped, and then she turned on her heel and stalked into her house.
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Cato thought the place was fucking disgusting. Everything was covered in black dust. The streets, the houses, the branches of the trees. Even the people. He could see it in the creases of their foreheads and their knuckles.
"Does no one bathe here?" he asked loudly enough for her to hear. She scowled and stared straight ahead.
Brutus elbowed him in the ribs. "Shut up," he said through clenched teeth.
The people adored her but stared stonily at him. It didn't matter. He had been expecting a frosty reception in 12 anyway.
When it was time to go, Cato couldn't help but notice the tone she used as she left instructions for her mother. Her eyes were hard and her voice brusque and firm, as though she were the parent and her mother the child. "I mean it," she said. "Every day. You take Gale's family whatever they need. And Peeta's too." Her mother looked at her with wide eyes, intimidated by her own daughter, and nodded.
She turned to her sister and changed entirely, as though a switch had been flipped on inside of her. The gray of her eyes softened and turned smoky and her shoulders relaxed. Even the sharp angles of her face seemed to round out a bit. "Goodbye Little Duck," she said, her voice a caress now. "I'll see you in a few weeks." And then she hugged the girl tightly to her, kissing the top of her head with a dramatic "mmmmuuuahhh!"
She did not touch her mother.
And for the first time in months, Cato felt the tiniest stirring of curiosity about another human being.
That night, after she had gone to bed, he sat and flipped through the tv channels and pretended that he wasn't listening as Haymitch told Brutus her life story.
He pretended not to listen to how her dad had been killed in a mining accident when she was 11 and his body was never recovered.
He pretended not to listen to how her mother had basically gone catatonic and she had been forced first to sell off most of what they owned, and then to dig through trash to feed herself and her little sister and her mother.
He pretended not to listen to how she almost starved to death until one day she remembered that her father had taught her about edible plants and how to hunt with a bow and arrow and that he'd left a couple of them hidden in the woods.
He pretended not to listen to how she'd risked her life every day for years, sliding under the fence and out into the woods until eventually she became known for her hunting prowess and her ability to provide for her family.
But he heard every word.
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Their mentors and escorts had decided that, due to the likelihood of Katniss breaking down, Cato should read the entire speech in 11.
But she was disgusted by the way he read the words right off of the paper without lifting his eyes to the crowd. Flatly, monotonously, as though he was bored as hell. Which he probably was.
And when she looked at Rue's family, she couldn't stop the words of gratitude and respect that tumbled from her mouth.
She started to wonder if her spontaneous outpouring had been a mistake as soon as the old man whistled those four notes.
She got a bad feeling that it had been when the entire crowd lifted their hands and gave her the District 12 salute.
She knew for certain that it was when the Peacekeepers dragged the old man who had whistled to the front of the crowd and shot him, execution-style, in the head.
She screamed and sobbed and Haymitch had to pick her up in his arms like a child and carry her inside.
She covered her thighs and stomach with cuts that night. But she could not bleed enough.
So after everyone had gone to bed, she snuck out of her room and over to the wet bar, and she filled a glass all the way up to the top with liquor, and when she returned to her room, she chugged it as fast as she could, ignoring the way it burned as it slid down her throat. And then she curled up into a ball on her bed and waited for it to kick in and usher her into oblivion.
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He had figured 11 would be at least as frosty towards him as 12 had been, since Thresh had met a particularly gruesome end at his hands.
But something was different. It didn't feel cold and stony like 12. They loved her, of course. But there was a current of energy, a dangerous one, running through the crowd. Cato could feel its subtle vibrations on his skin, raising the hair on his arms and the back of his neck. He could hear it crackling in the air.
If he had spit into the wind in 12, he imagined it would have frozen into a crystal of ice before dropping to the ground to shatter.
If he spit into the wind here, it would sizzle and steam and evaporate before it ever hit the ground.
A feeling of apprehension skittered up his spine, and without realizing he was doing it, he avoided making eye contact with anyone in the crowd, and focused instead on maintaining a neutral expression and getting through the speech as quickly as possible.
Everything would have been fine if Firegirl hadn't opened her stupid fucking mouth and poured out all of her disgusting feelings and some shit about respect and gratitude and Thresh playing the game on his own terms and Rue reminding her of her sister.
And then they shot that foolish old man.
In the brief commotion that followed Cato accidentally looked right into the eyes of Thresh's older sister.
At the Academy and in the arena, he had coated himself in a numbing agent concocted from adrenaline and the promise of glory and years of training in the art of dehumanization until he had become completely desensitized to blood and fear and cries for mercy.
But he was not at the Academy and he was not in the arena, and he had not had time to don his emotional armor. And so he was not prepared for what he saw in her big brown eyes. The pain in them was too raw and too deep for words, and for the first time he understood, truly understood, the inhumanity of the things that he had done in his games.
It was too much, it was overwhelming, and as quickly as he could he retreated into himself and emerged wrapped in his sociopathic security blanket. It provided relief in the short-term, and he bitched at Katniss ("Way to go Girl on Fire.") as she folded in on herself and sobbed, but the damage was done. The pain he had seen in Thresh's sister's eyes slithered under his skin and seeped into his blood and lodged itself into his bones to lay there, dormant, like the spawn of a parasite, waiting to hatch into full-fledged guilt.
That night, in the privacy of his room, he shot himself up with morphling and drank half of a bottle of whiskey. He woke up the next morning facedown on the floor in a puddle of his own vomit, and as he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, he lamented the fact that he hadn't passed out on his back and choked to death on it.
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At breakfast he listened to Haymitch and Brutus shoot the shit together like two old friends.
"You're awfully friendly with that scum," he observed after Haymitch had left the table.
"Scum?" Brutus laughed and crossed his arms over his chest. "I used to think like that. Just like that. But then I realized it. And you'll realize it too. Soon enough."
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"The other Victors. They're your family now son. They understand you better than anyone else. And you understand them. You just don't realize it yet."
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Every night when she came back to the train, she drank straight whiskey, just like Brutus and Haymitch and Cato, until her head lolled on her chest, and Effie exclaimed at how often the decanter had to be refilled.
She would stumble into her room and pass out on top of the covers, but toward dawn Rue and Marvel and Peeta and Glimmer would come to pay her a visit and she would wake, screaming and shaking, until Haymitch rushed in to hold her against his chest and rock her back and forth.
She never heard Cato cry out in his sleep. It figured. He probably didn't feel an ounce of guilt for the lives he'd taken.
At breakfast, she would choose simple foods. Fresh bread, full of raisins and nuts, that reminded her of the loaves Peeta had tossed to her five and a half years ago. She would tear off chunks and dip them into her hot chocolate, just like he used to.
"You eat like a child," Cato said scornfully as he feasted on eggs benedict with crab and exotic fruit salad and asparagus out of season. "All of this," he gestured around the table, "and you choose that."
"And does that make you happy?" she asked, her voice low and scathing. Because some part of her innately understood that he was dying on the inside, just like she was. "Does any of this shit," she gestured around to the velvet upholstery and the crystal chandeliers, "make you happy?"
He glared at her and returned to his breakfast, disturbed at the unfamiliar sensation of having someone see right through him.
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They were in 5 when he decided he'd had enough. They adored her. They chanted her name and they threw flowers at her and their applause for her was thunderous.
They clapped for him too, but there was something sarcastic about it, sullen about it, grudging about it. Like one child forced to apologize to another. They did not cheer. And they certainly did not throw flowers at him.
This was not what he had worked for his whole life. This was not what he had envisioned. Maybe that was why he was so unhappy. Because his victory had been robbed from him. By that cunt from 12.
"This is her fault," he growled to Brutus. "And fucking Seneca Crane's. Why I can't enjoy my Victory. Why the people of these pathetic districts hate me."
Brutus snorted and took a sip of whiskey. "No it's not. They'd hate you anyway. Even if you were the only Victor. Do you think they didn't hate me when I went on my tour? Do you think they didn't hate Enobaria? And do you think any of us enjoy our victories?"
Cato turned to look at his mentor, and realized, for the first time, that he was a high-functioning alcoholic. He saw, for the first time, the emptiness in his eyes. He heard, for the first time, the hollowness in his voice.
"You never told me that," he said slowly. 'You made it sound like the best feeling in the world. You lied to me."
Brutus shrugged. "There would have no point in telling you the truth. Look, I'm sorry to have to break it to you, but no one wins the games son. 23 people die and 1 survives. Well, in this case, 22 people died and 2 survived." He lifted his glass to his mouth again but paused. "If you can even call it survival. Your body survives, let's put it that way. Your soul though...now that's a whole nother story. That's long gone I'm afraid." He clucked his tongue and took a sip.
Cato sat there in shock, absorbing Brutus's words, and realizing the truth in them.
His whole life. His whole life he had worked for this. And this was his reward?!
They had made false promises on honeyed tongues.
President Snow. The gamemakers. Brutus. Enobaria. Lyme. All of them.
He'd been manipulated and used for entertainment. He had been nothing more than a puppet. He had laughed with contempt at the tributes from the other districts. So proud he had been. So proud that he wasn't pathetic like them. But he was the pathetic one.
It started as a slow burn, but it gained momentum the longer he sat there until, twenty minutes later, he stood up so abruptly that his chair clattered to the floor behind him. He lunged at Brutus, knocking the glass from his hand, grabbing him up off of the couch by the fabric of his shirt. "YOU LIED TO ME! YOU FUCKING LIED! YOU USED ME!"
And then he punched Brutus right in the mouth. Brutus punched back.
The Peacekeepers tried to stay out of it and let it run its course, but when the two victors broke the glass coffee table and got blood all over the carpet, they stepped in. Brutus pulled back immediately, but they had to threaten Cato with a tranq gun.
"Fine," he snapped at them, heaving for breath and spitting blood out onto the carpet. "Fine, I'll stop." He glared at Brutus. "You're dead to me."
Brutus waited for the Peacekeepers to leave and then he eyed Cato mournfully as he wiped the blood from his nose with the back of his hand. "I didn't have any other choice Cato. None of us do. If it hadn't been you then it would have been another. It wasn't personal. It never was. Not with me or Enobaria or Lyme or you. We're victims of circumstance. Victims of our own genes. What can we do?"
But Cato didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to be consoled. He turned to go to his room, and there in the hallway was that little bitch, studying him with a mixture of curiosity and pity.
It infuriated him.
She stepped out of his way but he turned and pushed her none too gently into the wall. "Get the fuck outta my way," he said through clenched teeth, getting in her face, waiting for her to flinch or show some other sign of fear.
But she didn't flinch and she didn't show any other sign of fear. She just continued to look up at him with that same expression, her eyes silver and shifting in the light from the sconces.
"You better wipe that fucking look off your face or I'll do it for you." But even he could hear how half-hearted he sounded by now. Like the tail end of a thunderstorm.
She looked at him for a few more seconds, calm as could be, and then she turned, slowly, and made her way back down the hall and into her room, her steps light and graceful as a hunter's.
He bowed his head and exhaled as he unclenched his fists.
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A week later they were in 2, and a visit to the Academy was on the docket.
The youngest children, the six and seven year olds, crowded around Cato, staring up in wonder and touching his muscles. He smiled down at them mechanically, but Katniss could tell that the part of him that would have reveled in this a week ago was dead and gone. He was now wholly disillusioned.
And then a gaggle of little girls crowded around her, trying to press in and touch her clothing and her hair. They gazed up at her in admiration.
"I wanna be a victor just like you some day," a tiny thing with big blue eyes said to her.
She wanted to cry.
She was equally disturbed as she watched the class of ten-year-old boys gang up on the poor soul who had come in last in their wrestling tournament that day. They stole his afternoon snack and tripped him and called him awful names. Names that ten-year-old boys should not know.
One of the instructors, a man named Marcus, noticed her expression and came over to comfort her. "Don't worry about that. You know Cato was the runt of his group until he was about that age. They were merciless to him. Every day for years. And look at him now." He grinned and patted her on the back.
Katniss swung her head around to give him a look. "Seriously?" she ground out. "Jesus christ, no wonder."
"No wonder what?"
"Nothing," she sighed. No wonder he is the way he is.
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Her glass was empty. And she was still conscious. This was unacceptable.
When she left her room to refill it, Cato was sitting on the couch with his back to her.
He was watching the footage of Clove's death. Over and over. He would pause, rewind, start up again. Pause, rewind, start up again. Pause, rewind, start up again.
She couldn't hear the words he was muttering, but she could tell by the way he held his head in his hands that he was verbally flogging himself for not being fast enough, for not being in the right place at the right time.
She understood, far too well, what it felt like to drown in guilt over the death of your district partner. To analyze your every move and what went wrong and what you could have done differently-what you should have done differently-to ensure that they had lived.
She made her way to the bar, and when he heard her his head shot up and he paused the tv. "What the fuck are you doing?" he snapped.
She didn't answer, she just picked up the whiskey decanter and refilled her glass. And then she reached up and took down another glass and she filled that one too.
She came to stand in front of him, and she held it out. He eyed her warily, but he took it.
"To failing our district partners and hating ourselves for it," she said in a low voice, as she touched the rim of her glass to the rim of his.
He looked up at her.
She looked down at him.
And together they partook in unholy communion.