Chapter 11
Peeta
We both stand still, waiting for Katniss and Rue to leave. As soon as there's silence Cato holds my head in his hands and softly kisses me. My hand lightly touches his waist. My heartbeat increases as his hand runs down my back and he backs me against a tree.
He brings his other hand down my back, pulling me closer to him. I place my hand on the back of his head and feel his breath on my cheek. His hand explores my good thigh, then runs along the front to my crotch.
My body tingles when he gently squeezes my cock, feeling it get harder. He slowly unbuttons my trousers, making me anticipate it even more. He stops kissing me and looks down as he pulls my dick out of my trousers. He runs his hand up and down my shaft. I let out an involuntary "mmm" as his fingers stroke the head of my cock.
He bends down onto his knees and looks up at me with a devilish smile. He licks my cock from the base to the tip, keeping eye contact with me. He bobs his head forward, taking half my cock in his mouth. I let out a sigh and lean my head back as his tongue works on my dick. Bringing his head back my cock slides out of his mouth, then bringing his head forward it slides back in. He continues the action, more of me fitting inside his mouth each time. I end up feeling my dick hit the back of his throat as he blows me, and despite how he tries to control his gagging, he has to stop for minute and instead wanks me off. It's not long before I can feel I'm going to come.
"Cato," I begin, but he knows what I was going to say and in response wanks me harder. I can't help but moan as the pleasure rushes through my body. Cato takes my dick back in his mouth and I jerk my waist forward as cum jets from my cock. My hands curl into fists, I squeeze my eyes shut and my body tenses, the immensity of the feeling overwhelming me.
He continues blowing me until I begin to soften. He puts my junk back in my pants and stands up, wiping his mouth, a sly smirk on his face.
"Wow..." is all I can say.
"Come on, we should head back," he says, grabbing my hand.
"Nice, you've gotten better," Cato says as he watches my spear hit the tree I had aimed at. I watch him as he runs to retrieve it.
The sudden shock of it hits me. We could go home. Both of us could win. It doesn't feel real. When he returns I take hold of his hand. I hold his other one, making him drop the spear.
"We could actually do it," he says, leaning forward for a kiss. It's like electricity is running through us, making my stomach do back flips.
"We'd better make sure we win," I say when we stop kissing.
I think back to when Cato was sucking my dick. It had disappeared from my mind that the Capitol, and probably all the districts, were watching. As soon as I begin to feel embarrassed I remind myself that there's nothing I can do about it now, and that the Capitol will probably like us more for it.
What will happen if we both win? Will we be able to see each other? Will Cato even want to see me? All these questions run through my head. At least I know I won't have to live with my mother. If I get a house in the Victors' Village I won't have to let my mother live in it. I'm going to be hated by my district for siding with the Careers, not with Katniss. If I had stayed with her the rules probably would have been changed so that me and her could win. Katniss supplies most of the black market meat in district twelve, a lot of people will starve. It's inevitable that everybody will hate me.
"What's up?" Cato asks.
"Nothing," I say, returning to my thoughts.
"Come on, tell me," he insists.
"It's about time we had lunch, isn't it?" I suggest, changing the topic.
"I guess," he replies, not looking pleased and we both walk back to the cornucopia.
"Do you think it's safe for us to be here? I mean, now that there can be two victors there's more of a chance of an ambush. Not to mention everybody knows that we're here, we'll be everybody's first-" I say, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.
"Shh," Cato interrupts, putting his hands on my shoulders, "they don't think we're stupid enough to stay here, so they won't even bother looking."
I stare at him, momentarily dumbfounded.
"Was that supposed to make me feel better?" I ask, sarcastically.
"What I meant is they won't attack us. We're going to be fine. We just need to be more... vigilant," he says, but I continue to look at him with unease.
"All right, we'll look for a new camp tomorrow, is that okay?" he asks.
"I already know one," I reply with a grin.
After lunch Cato and I return to the woods so I can show him the cave. We stop half way and take a break.
"What makes you sure this place is any good?" Cato asks after taking a big gulp of water from his canteen.
"You know that boulder where the district ten boy came out of nowhere?" I ask.
"Yeah, I saved your ass," he says with a smug look.
"Well, there's a kind of chamber inside the rock. It's barely visible," I say.
"Really? None of the crevices looked wide enough for anybody to get in,"
"It's a squeeze, yes, but the space inside is huge, bigger than the tent and it's dry, I doubt rain would leak through," I say but he looks at me in disbelief.
We pack up and continue walking. I notice Cato going faster than he usually does, I assume he wants to prove me wrong. But I'm certain of what I saw. We arrive at the small clearing and Cato stands, surveying the rock.
"And you're sure that there's a cave right in front of me?" he asks.
I roll my eyes and walk ahead of him, taking off my bag and dropping my weapons, to the cave entrance. I squeeze through and wait for Cato's reaction.
"Holy shit," he says, astonished.
Little light gets inside, just enough to stop me bumping into the walls. Cato joins me, holding his arms out, touching the wall, getting a feel for the size of the space.
"This place is amazing, Peeta," he says.
"So we'll set up camp here?" I ask.
"Yeah, but it's too late to do it today," he says, and I can't help but agree. By the time we return to the cornucopia it won't be long until sundown.
"I guess. We'll start moving tomorrow, right?" I ask.
"Sure," he says, his lips meeting mine.
I remember I owe him for the blow job he gave me yesterday. I let my hand run down his side, along his thigh and squeeze his crotch, suddenly wanting him. I feel his lips smiling, so I continue squeezing the fabric, getting a better feel for his penis. Then he puts his hand between us.
"What's wrong?" I ask.
"Nothing, it's just this isn't really the place," he says.
"And the middle of the forest is?" I retort, confused, frustrated and slightly upset.
"Peeta, I don't mean like that-"
"I know what you meant," I say as I walk out to the cave.
I don't really know what he means. I just need to leave. I thought he wanted me. I don't see why he doesn't. I pick up my bag and weapons and walk back to the cornucopia. He doesn't come after me.
As I sit in the tent I feel like an idiot. It wasn't a good idea to split up like that, putting both of us in danger. I anxiously wait for him to return.
"I'm sorry," I say as he walks in. He gives me that caring smile I love.
"It's fine," he walks to me then kneels, his mouth almost touching my ear, his voice drops to a whisper, "I just don't think we should be showing them everything we have to offer right now, if we prolong it you don't know what the gamemakers will do to keep us alive."
All of a sudden it makes sense. Why didn't I see it before? The reason there can be two winners is because the Capitol likes Cato and I. So if we keep them wanting more we'll get sponsors and like Cato said, the gamemakers might interfere.
"Won't you get us in trouble for saying that?" I ask.
"They have ways of changing the footage so the wrong thing isn't broadcast. Just as long as I don't do it all the time we should be fine," he says, not a hint of doubt on his face.
"Can you remind me why we're bringing the boxes? It's not like we can fit them in the cave," I ask Cato as we carry one of the two crates between us past the cave.
"Like I said before: we dig a big hole, camouflage it making it look like forest floor with the box suspended by thin wire and it look like it's sitting on the ground, somebody comes along and falls down," he explains simply.
The kinder part of me shudders as we plan to kill somebody. But the rational part of me knows that it's what we must do, if we want to survive. I have to admit, it's a good plan, however barbaric.
"Wait, we don't have shovels, they got blown up," I state, shocked he didn't notice either.
"I was looking through the mess earlier, things that were at the centre of the pile didn't get damaged that bad because we didn't place any mines directly under them. The two metal shovels have chunks missing off the blade, but still work," he says.
When we get to our cave we deposit the contents of the box inside, then set off back to the cornucopia, leaving the box outside.
"What are we doing with the other box?" I ask when we near our old camp.
"We'll use that as a kind of... reassurance,"
"Reassurance?"
"If we leave one crate out in the open with food wrappers in it they'll get careless when they see the second crate," he explains, the theory makes sense, "or they'll be more suspicious."
"I guess," I say nonchalantly.
It feels like forever, but we get back to the tent, carry the second crate and the shovels to the cave then walk to a random area of the woods and dig a hole. It's early afternoon when we finish and my muscles ache badly. I finish off the camouflage, it being my specialty, squatting at the edge of the hole. My fingers ache, too.
"Nice," Cato says, walking past me.
"Thanks, I'm just about done," I say.
"I wasn't talking about that," he says with a cheeky laugh. I realize he was checking me out. I look back to the ground, hiding my smile, turning red. He continues walking.
I'm not sure whether the sting on my palm has gotten better or if I've grown used to feeling jabs of pain now and then. I remember I never put medicine on it. And now I can't, our supplies got blown up.
"Cato," I say, slightly worried.
"Yeah,"
"Our stings. The medicine got blown up," I say.
"Oh yeah," he says, looking at his stings, a more serious look on his face, "there's nothing we can do about it, though."
He's right. I try to put it out of my mind, but later that night as we eat supper I can't help but look at my hand every few minutes, then my forearm, then my thigh.
"Peeta, you've got to calm down," Cato says while holding my hand, circling my sting with his thumb. He manages to slightly touch it so that it isn't painful, the sentiment soothing.
"You've kept it clean?" he asks, I nod, "So there's nothing you can do, it's out of your control. Stop worrying."
A taut look grows on his face.
"Is there something you're not saying?" I ask apprehensively at his guilty looking face.
"I've been meaning to tell you something." he says, staring blankly, "When you got reaped you started making a plan with your district victor, didn't you? Well, that's what I did. But mine was a bit complex. I knew that a gay couple had never been seen in the arena before, so I planned to hook up with one of the Careers. Marvel said no and the boy from district four wasn't..."
"Attractive enough?" I ask, remembering the short, ginger, curly-haired boy who seemed so out-of-place as a Career.
"He was a traitor, anyway." he pauses for a minute, can it really be that bad? "Glimmer got caught sneaking a ring in that had a poison tip in the ring's gem, it was her district token. But they didn't know that Marvel had one of his own, with concentrated tracker-jacker venom instead of poison. I found out, took it from him and blackmailed him..."
"Blackmailed him into doing what?" I ask, sucked into the story.
"Drugging you," he says, finally looking into my eyes.
"What?"
"You were given a diluted solution of tracker-jacker venom that would give you memory loss and would allow me to plant thoughts into your subconscious," he explains.
Everything stops as the puzzle pieces slide into place and I begin to understand. I woke up after being drugged by Cato, meaning I didn't remember anything. It left my subconscious wanting Cato which is why I stayed with the Careers and why I stayed with Cato despite knowing that us being a couple wouldn't end well. Then when we attacked Katniss and the tracker-jackers attacked us, the venom gave me more memory loss because I already had it in my system. Cato killed Marvel just to keep his secret.
I have no choice but to pretend to be fine with it if I want to win.
"Hey," I say, pulling him in to a hug as he begins to cry, "you were trying to survive, you did what any of us would do."
They're the best words of comfort I can come up with, but I have to make it convincing.
"You're just saying that," he replies, looking up at me, glassy-eyed.
Of course I am you idiot, I think, hoping my face gives the same expression. It must do because he looks back down, like a puppy who's just been shouted at. He's asleep in minutes and I can't help but pity him slightly.
I mull over what I learned earlier. There's one thing that doesn't make sense. The only reason I thought Marvel had drugged me was because he had a tattoo on his ankle. If it was Cato's ankle I had seen walking down the stairs then that means he has an identical tattoo.
A thin line of moonlight pours through the small entrance onto Cato's face. He looks so innocent while he's sleeping. He's not somebody who wants to do bad things. He's somebody who's forced to do bad things. From a young age his parents put him into the Career Training Center. He had to volunteer to enter the arena because his entire life had been leading up to it, he didn't know any other way. He had to use somebody to make him more likely to win. He's just doing what he's been taught to do since he was a child. To win the games.
I just don't see why he had to drug me. I would have been seduced by him with or without a clear head. Maybe he just didn't believe that.
That buzz I feel when we kiss. Is that a connection between us two or is it just my mind associating it with whatever happened the night before the games?
I stay awake, keeping watch until sunrise, when Cato wakes up. He tells me to sleep but I know I'm going to end up passing out soon anyway.
When I fully wake up Cato's outside and the sky is dim. He can't keep letting me sleep in like this. He looks in and sees I'm awake, I notice he's cooking when he walks over to me with a plate.
"Thanks," I say as I blow on the leg of rabbit, at least I think it's rabbit. He smiles, then exits the cave, probably trying not to smother me.
Later he returns to the cave and we both sit without talking for a while. I should try to make conversation, for both our sakes. If I convince Cato that he's unconditionally forgiven, I'll be able to convince the Capitol. I might even be able to convince myself.
"So what's the plan for today?" I ask, enthusiastically.
"It's the afternoon," he says with a laugh, "But I guess we could go get the heater from the tent."
"All right, then," I say standing up, holding out my hand to Cato. I help him up and we set off back to our old camp. I rack my brain for an ice breaker.
"There haven't been any deaths for a few days," he says. He's right, it won't be long before something happens. I clutch the spear in my hand and feel my leg for my knives. Everything's in place.
"You're right, maybe we should look tomorrow. Who would you say is the biggest threat?" I ask, hoping there's some way the gamemakers could send a signal saying whether I'm convincing. I have to go on instinct. I hold his hand. He gives me a fake smile, but doesn't let go.
We get to the tent and see that everything inside lays undisturbed. Cato walks over to the heater and bends down, sliding his fingers under it and waits for me to go to the other side. I go to Cato and wait until he stands back up.
"Cato," I say, taking his hand, "I don't care what you did. Really, I don't. We need to focus on getting out of here, the future, not the past. What I feel is real, what I feel for you is real. No amount of venom could create or destroy that. You gave me thoughts, that's all, thoughts. If it wasn't for those thoughts I wouldn't have returned after the bloodbath. All you did was keep me close. So stop beating yourself up about it."
He grabs me in a tight squeeze and I rub his back soothingly.
"Are we good?" I ask. He replies with a yes after clearing his throat. I don't know what parts of my speech were true. There is something I've been wanting to do, though. It will remove any doubts the Capitol, the gamemakers or Cato has.
"Close your eyes," I say. By the look on his face I guess he knows what I'm about to do.
I unzip his flies and put my hand in his pants. It's met by warmth as I cup Cato's manhood. When he gets more aroused I start stroking him, feeling it growing. I've been secretly hoping that he isn't bigger than me, but as I feel him continue to grow I can tell he is. Keeping hold of him, I pull out my hand, letting his dick flop. I gaze down at its size. It's big. Maybe too big.
I get down on my knees and pull his foreskin back with my hand, then pull it forward. I lick the underside of his cock, then circle the head with my tongue, wetting it.
I put as much of his meat in my mouth as I can, only fitting half. Bringing my head back and forth, gently sucking, I begin to fit more of him in my mouth. My tongue licks along the vein that runs down the side of his shaft and I hear him exhale deeply.
As I suck his dick, pulling him in and out his hips begin to go with the rhythm. I feel him at the back of my throat and I pull him out before I start gagging.
I stand up and kiss him, playing with his cock. It's bigger than mine and feels better in my hands. I rub his glans and his moaning gives my lips a vibrating sensation.
I begin to wank him, starting slow then increasing the place. My hand goes up and down with speed and longing.
I notice Cato holding his breath, then letting out a long moan as I feel warm cum ooze onto my hand. The second load shoots further onto his shirt and the third lands on mine.
"You should forgive me more often," he says, probably for the Capitol, but I can't help being led by his flirtatious attitude.
We go out to the lake, the low sun casting long shadows along the grass, immersing us in twilight. We both take our jackets and shirts off then dump them in the water, letting them soak while we put just our jackets on. We don't have anything to clean them with, so we just wring our shirts, hoping there aren't any stains.
I remember we have the heater and suggest we hang our shirts over it, letting them dry quicker. Once in the tent we both sit down, shirtless and let the heater keep us warm as our shirts dry.
That night as I lay in Cato's arms, I notice it feels odd. It feels odd because it doesn't feel odd. There should be some lingering tension. All my life if I argued with a friend and we made up, the cloud always came back when ever I thought about the argument. But with Cato it's like it was never there.
"Attention, tributes. Attention. Commencing at sunrise, there will be a feast tomorrow at the cornucopia. This will be no ordinary occasion, each alliance needs something desperately and we plan to be generous hosts." I hear Claudius Templesmith's voice from all angles.
I open my eyes, noticing they've been closed for I don't know how long. Was I dreaming Claudius' voice?
"What do we need desperately?" Cato asks. I look at my palm then forearm. The stings have doubled in size. My eyes widen.
"Cato, they're infected," I say, standing up "they've got to be worse than we thought they were."
"They're just trying to scare us, Peeta." Cato says, leaning forward.
"We still need to go to the feast," I say, pacing. I look outside, it's dark, "Shit Cato, how long have we slept?"
"How should I know?" he asks, lying back down.
"Because one of us needs to be on watch at all times, maybe." I say, looking at the light we installed on the ceiling. If somebody had walked past, even at a distance, the light would have stood out against the dark. "We're leaving. Now."
"No, we're not," he replies, curling up. I need to think of a reason why we should actually leave now besides me being stubborn.
"If we leave now we can hide in the cornucopia, they won't expect that," I say, his eyes flash open.
"What if somebody else thinks of doing that?" he asks.
"We'll be waiting for them." I say, helping him stand up, "Like you said, they don't think we're stupid enough to stay there."
We grab our weapons, not bothering with food and head out the crack in the rock. I buzz with confidence and it passes to Cato.
"We're coming back," He says with such conviction that I can't help but press my lips against his. He passionately kisses me back and my chest begins to float. He grabs my hand and we run off into the night.
A/N: If you didn't figure it out the feast is the gamemaker's way of saying that the Capitol is convinced. Sorry i'm not a very good smut writer idk. Please review etc etc.
Ruerajarm:
Thanks! Insano? I hope that's a good thing. I'll try not to kill her painfully, no promises.
MangoMagic:
From the amount of times you said 'oh my god' I assume you don't think the rule change is out of character for the gamemakers? Yes, I'm hoping to focus more on the two of them and how Cato's confession will change the way Peeta sees him. Oh and trying not to suck at it as well.
Blah-Blah-Amazing:
Yay yay yay thank you thank you you're awesome.