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clatoera · 10 months ago

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Picket Fence is Sharp as Knives Chapter 2: Barefoot in the Wildest Winter, Catching my Death

Heeeeeey. Welcome back, I call this a mini chapter. It's still almost 3400 words. Thats insane of me. This chapter is

Clove centric/ Clato

20 months after the war/ 7 after the epilogue of ARWBFB

Ironic because the starbucks I wrote this in was so cold my fingers were fucking numb, which you will understand the irony of once you read it.

This is not..intense. It's just a palate cleanser after the Glimmer Prequel I posted this week. I think everyone needed it. I honestly wrote it because we got 10 inches of snow last week and currently are getting multiple more inches as we speak.

Anyway!

Chapter title from Evermore (Taylor Swift)

Masterpost

AO3

Theres also a good bit of cashmere/enobaria mentioned in honor of @bodyelectric77 giving me brain amoebas. I'm just going to tag @kentwells because this whole sequel is your fault. Anyway! Love y'all! love the besties! love everyone! ( I just..love love),

By virtue of the location, the widespread villages littering the biggest mountain range in Panem like sprinkles atop a cupcake, District Two gets substantial snowfall. The kind of snow that allows an extra industry for capitol elites to come and pretend to live like a district citizen in a heated, maintained cabin on the mountainsides, where people can party and celebrate the simplicity of a winter snow in the way that only someone who doesn’t have to worry about keeping heat on can do.

If you were a child in the district without the commitment (Privilege? Curse?) of training, you could celebrate heavy snowfall with snowball fights followed by hot chocolate with your friends in one of your living rooms. If you were a trainee, a possible tribute, snow meant drills in the cold, running despite snow reaching your knees, agility trials on ice. If you were a trainee with just enough of a rebellious streak, snowfall meant you snuck out with the other kids in your class and rode makeshift sleds down the hills otherwise used for terrain testing. And if you were a trainee that got caught, snow meant laying on your back in a bank of it, in shorts and t-shirts, until your skin burned and your body ached. If you were the right kind of District Two training kid- the punishment was worth the glimmer of childhood you got to experience.

The snow was not even the worst part– District Two was extremely cold. Not the type of cold where the cute jackets and scarves produced in District Eight would be sufficient, but the type of bone chilling cold that it was a miracle the majority of the population did not freeze to death by the end of a particularly bad winter. The academy just factored the weather into training– figuring out ways to layer, to stay warm, how to get rest in these types of conditions, and how to keep at peak performance despite below freezing temperatures. The embarrassment of a tribute losing because they lost grip on a weapon (“because of the weather” is an unacceptable excuse), is deeply ingrained in any child who has gone through training in District Two. They considered it to be a privilege to train in such harsh conditions, a leg up on competitors of how to deal with what could be thrown on them in the arena. Weather was not an excuse for failure.

Clove, of course, knows these things. Years later she can handle Brutus’s remarks about her clumsy frozen fingers almost ending her life, but at the time it was an insecurity that was fortunately never addressed due to the scandal of her long-term hidden relationship and accompanying secrets coming to the surface.

Despite her games being a literal arctic blizzard, the snow and the cold had not bothered Clove in the immediate after her games. Sure, there were times where if she closed her eyes long enough on her porch that it felt like she was back in the arena for the briefest of seconds. However the heat of adrenaline that rushed to her chest brought her right back, and when her eyes would fly open and land on her Victor’s Village yard she’d be snapped back into her new reality. A reality of survival and victory.

She was even somewhat fond of the snow, with the recollections of childhood, of times her and Cato had snuck out back in the dead of night to “practice” in the wintry conditions.

“If it weren’t for your hair you’d blend right in.” Cato teased, but his hands slipping under her arms and knees revealed that he meant business. He tossed her, as hard as he possibly could, into an adjacent snow bank, where her tiny teenage body did indeed slip under the entirety of the pile. The fifteen year old girl would have in fact blended in if not for the deep espresso color of her hair. And the constellation of freckles all over her skin. And the deep evergreen color of her eyes. None of which, Cato knew, were normal details to notice about one’s training partner.

The brief distraction would always be enough for Clove to grab him around the ankle, pull his feet out from under him, and bring him tumbling down right into the snow beside her.

They’d always sneak back in with icicles in their hair, water dripping off their clothes as the snow melted away, and a redness that danced across both of their noses and cheeks. Sometimes the only thing that could properly warm them up after was sharing the same dorm room bed, with snide remarks from Clove about how he may as well be a human heater. While those remarks may be snide, they were never a complaint that is.

It wasn’t snow after her games that bothered her, and truthfully, last winter hadn’t even been too terrible. Maybe somewhere, some cosmic control of the universe decided the people of District Two (realistically, the people of all of Panem) had suffered enough the previous year during the war. A couple of inches here or there, temperatures that dropped but never quite hit that bone chilling type of cold they were so familiar with. It was cold but not cruelly so, and that was nothing short of a miracle considering how many District Two citizens were displaced and without housing as a result of the rebels’ bombing. Those signature temperature dip and the blizzards would have been catastrophic to a district that was already facing such immense population loss.

Now, over a year and a half since the conclusion of the war, brutal weather was back to strike their home with a bite.

Multiple feet of snow combined with temperatures plummeting to near zero, both confirmed what Clove knew was coming: Winter in District Two was back with a vengeance.

While Cato had been thrilled to have a classic District Two winter; to take his little sister sled riding, to introduce her to hot chocolate and the power of a hot bowl of soup at the end of a day in the cold (courtesy, of course, of Clove), Clove had truthfully been dreading the impending storm.

The cold, quite frankly, hurt.

It did not hurt from the biting sting of cold wind against flesh or because of tingling fingers and ears from too long outside; no, it hurt deep in her body, in every single movement of her joints. It hurt like her skeleton was crackling, like the marrow inside her bones itself was forming ice crystals that shattered with her movement. It wasn’t just the flexion of her fingers and shoulders that hurt at this point. It hurts to exist. It felt like her ribs were cracking with the expansion of her lungs. With every step, a dull pain inside of her hip sockets begged her to stop moving and just rest. She hadn’t been prepared for every joint that had been dislocated and every healed fracture to remind her that she was never truly going to be able to heal from what Snow had done to her.

Clove, for the first time, understood what they meant when they called it bone cold. And holy shit did it hurt.

She tried the rational and logical ways to warm up. She tried a shower with water so hot it should have blistered her skin off, but only slightly brought her down from the feeling of ice in her veins. She layered on two, three of Cato’s already oversized sweatshirts, swimming in layers of clothes that made her look like a child playing dress up without any warmth radiating deeper than her skin. She had laid in bed, weighed down by a comforter plus another ten pounds of throw blankets, that didn't even touch the ache inside her.

All this is to say that Clove tried a lot before her desperation for any comfort resulted in her current position. On the floor…in front of the fireplace… both on top of and underneath the same ten plus pounds of blankets she had dragged downstairs with her. Even this, the combination of blankets, heat, and Cato’s clothes were only enough to slightly tamper down the ache.

Still, it was apparently just enough for her to fall asleep that way, because the next thing Clove knows, she’s being gently shaken awake with a foot on her shoulder hearing the panicked whispers of “Babe….babe…Clove..babe…Clove..are you alive?” That can only possibly come from Cato, who is insistently shaking her awake. “Clove?”

“Hmmm?” Clove murmurs, peaking one eye open to glance up at the man oh so kindly waking her. He stands over her, flecks of snow melting on the tips of his hair, cold water running off the black waterproof fabric of his coat and onto her face all the way down where she lays under him. “Move back, you’re making me colder.”

“Are you okay?” He nudges her again, but kneels down to closer to the same height as her. He reaches out with an ungloved hand, and the second his icy fingers touch her face Clove recoils into her blanket shell. From this height Clove can see the redness along his cheeks and over his nose that makes him look closer to twelve than twenty three. “Why are you on the floor?”

“I’m cold Cato, and it really fucking hurts.” She whines, tucking her hands into the blankets with her. “I can’t get warm.”

“Right..okay…did you try the bed–”

“Do you think I laid on our living room floor without trying the bed first?”

“Okay, what about those really hot baths you like, I can take you-”

“Cato. I tried it. This is all that helps.” Clove whimpers, rolling from her back onto her side, facing the blaze in the fireplace.

“I’ll be back just… Give me like..fifteen minutes.” Cato stands, and is already taking long strides upstairs before Clove even gets a moment to ask where he’s going.

She lays there for what feels like years in the glow of the fireplace, in the warmth it irradiates and the minimal relief it provides. She feels the presence of him behind her, the light tugging of her blankets, before she sees him.

“Don’t unwrap me, Cato, I’m warm-” Clove protests, but when she feels large, warm hands sliding under her layers and practically wrapping around her torso she melts. “You’re warm, oh my god.”

She doesn’t see him smirk, but knows him well enough to know he is, before he twists her to face him with the easiest twist of his wrists. He flashes her a grin, before pulling her flush against his bare, warm chest. Clove notices, absently, the way his wet hair falls just over his forehead how it did only in the immediate time after he showered until it dried.

“I’d prefer hot but I'll take it.” Cato taunts lightly as Clove buries her cheek against his chest, right over where his heart. “Comfy?” He teases, and a furrowed brow and a single narrowed green eye looks up at him in protest.

“Very.” Clove sighs, curling into him as his hands travel along the skin of her back and bringing heat with them. “You’re like a personal heater.”

“You could have called me, Clove…” Cato reminds her, tucking one leg over both of hers, using as much surface area contact as he could to bring her relief. “I would have come home.”

“You were with your sister, I wasn’t going to interrupt.” She doesn’t mention the embarrassment, the humiliation even, that she felt at the newest physical reminder of her time in the Capitol. A girl who used to love the snow, who loved the cold, now in pain greater than she’d ever admit to her husband. There were some things she didn’t even want him to know– her reduced pain tolerance, being one of them.“How did she like it?”

“She loved it!” Cato lights up, his smile reaching all the way to his eyes as he recounts his afternoon playing with his little sister. “Mom about killed me when she found out I was letting her go down the hill alone, but she had fun. No bones were broken.”

“Mmm, remember that time we found a trash can lid, and I sat on your lap as we went down that big hill behind the training center in the middle of the night?” Clove muses, freeing her hands from her blankety protection and tucking them against his abs. She holds back a giggle at the way he flinches away from her cold touch, his muscle flexing under her fingertips.

“You mean when we slammed into the brick wall and thought you broke your nose? And the giant bruise on my forehead that looked like you decked me with the handle of your knife?” Cato muses, wrapping Clove even tighter in his grasp, smiling to himself when he realizes that all the layers she used to try to insulate herself are his. “Of course I remember.”

“Your entire body weight landed on me and crushed me into the wall, yeah, I thought I was broken.” She wants to lift her head to scowl at him, but she is simply too warm, too comfortable, too safe right now to care. “You were giant, then, too.”

“We’re just lucky it was Brutus that punished us, not Enobaria.” There is a fond smile on his face as he thinks back to what cannot even be considered a simpler time –surely, laying on the living room floor with his wife, no games in sight, was far simpler than being fourteen and grasping for a glimpse of childhood– but certainly a nostalgic memory.

“Lucky? He made us run four miles barefoot, Cato. I would have taken whatever Enobaria was going to throw at us.” Clove tucked her icy feet against his for emphasis, and Cato actually flinched out of the way that time. “See? You still don’t like cold feet.”

“Speaking of Enobaria…doesn’t she have that hot tub, why didn’t you go over? She’s in One isn’t she? You would have had it to yourself…” One would have thought, twenty months into sharing custody of Enobaria with Cashmere and District One, they’d have gotten used to her schedule, used to her not always being readily available at their beck and call.

So many things had kept Enobaria in District Two, of course, in the past thirty some years of her life. Be it the limitations of interdistrict travel, the secret nature of her relationship with Cashmere (who had her own limitations, of course, considering the extent of the Capitol’s influence and abuse on her for over a decade), her commitments to her district and training, or maybe even Clove. Many reasons had existed to keep the Victor woman home, and now in the dawn of a new country, Enobaria had taken her well deserved freedoms.

Of course, that did not mean that they could keep track of her.

Some may go as far to say that Clove, Cato, and even Brutus, missed her sometimes.

Not that a single one of them would ever utter those words to her.

“I thought about it.” Clove sighs, turning her face to press the other cheek against his skin, equally warming her face. “But they’re actually here, I guess they’re here for a while…until Glimmer has the baby. Cash wants to stay in One for a few extra months straight after, I guess, so they’re making up time here for now. And I did not want to interrupt something over there again, especially not in the hot tub…” She shutters, not from the cold this time but from a distasteful memory that she clearly has brought to the surface. “Besides…I didn’t really want to go outside.”

“It’s kind of funny that Enobaria and Cashmere act like kids with divorced parents…back and forth back and forth to split their time evenly. Why don’t they just stay here?” Cato raises an eyebrow, a coy smile on his face. “District Two is obviously the better option.”

“Cashmere can’t leave her brother and sister, you know that. And she’s definitely not leaving now that Glimmer’s gonna have a whole kid soon.” Not just a kid, a little girl, a fact that Clove had to hear from Glimmer multiple times a day. “It would arguably make more sense for her to move to One if we’re suggesting permanent moving..and you know she isn’t going to leave here.”

“Enobaria would never survive with a neighbor named Rhinestone.”

Clove’s laugh is muffled against his chest, but he’s right. Splitting their time, like kids traveling between homes on holidays, was going to be their best bet. It didn’t make it any less funny, to imagine the mentor they all know and love spending half her time there.

Her laugh fades as her smile falls, and Clove can’t bring herself to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry I have to lay on the floor like this, I know it isn’t comfortable.”

“Clove..”

“I’m serious. This is just another new weakness, I guess. Just another thing Snow took from me.”

Cato’s hand slips off the skin of her back and Clove bites back a groan at the loss of warmth, before his hand holds the exposed side of her face. He doesn’t force her to look at him, simply strumming his thumb along her cheekbone. “Clove? I will bring the mattress down here, and we can sleep in front of this fireplace for the rest of Winter, hell, for the rest of our lives if it makes you feel even the slightest bit better. You aren’t weak, babe. I don’t even know if I could have survived what you did. You were tortured. And if this is how winter is going to go, this is how we’re going to survive it. Together.”

The composure she had tried so hard to maintain crumbles like the facade it is, and the gasping breath she takes startles Cato to the point that he has to look down at her.

“It hurts to breathe, Cato. My lungs hurt and my ribs hurt and it hurts to move and it hurts to bend my fingers. It’s like I'm frozen inside and it hurts.” Clove gasps out, burying her face firmly in the center of his chest. “I didn’t think i’d be in this much pain because of some fucking weather.”

Hurt. Pain. Neither words that Clove would ever admit to, not to anyone else in the world. To anyone but Cato, they made her a target, they made her vulnerable, and they made her weak.

“I know, Clove. I know.” He admits, bringing his hand back down to her side, warming her up from the inside of her shirts. “I wish I could take it for you.”

I wish I could take it for you.

What a gesture that is, in District Two, where pain makes you weak and vulnerable. To be willing to carry that burden, to take on that proverbial target. Only among District Two, would the admission of pain and the subsequent willingness to take it be such a marker of love.

“I just feel like someone could take me out so easily and i’m so useless right now and-”

“Noone’s coming after us. Noone’s going to take us out. And if they were, I think I’ve got it covered. I’m a Victor, too, you know.” Cato promises, bringing his lips down to kiss the top of her head, where she is nearly trying to burrow into his skin for the warmth he so readily provides. “I’ve got us, Clove. Pretend it’s my turn to keep watch in the games, okay? Sleep…relax..I’ve got us.”

“Am I gonna get a turn?” Clove nearly teases, and he can feel her lips quirking into a smile against his skin.

He snorts, and somehow manages to pull her closer. “Once a snowman isn’t your biggest opponent, sure.”

The pinch he feels on his side is enough for him to know that she was going to be just fine.

#clato #cato and clove #arwbfb au #arwbfb tag #always remember we're burned for better tag #clato fanfic #the hunger games fanfic #clato fanfiction #clato tag #clove tag #cato tag #cashmere and enobaria #cashbaria tag #arwbfb sequel #pfsk tag #picket fences sharp as knives tag

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clatoera · 2 years ago

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Always Remember We’re Burned For Better Chapter 4: I’ve Loved You Three Summers Now Honey, I Want Them All.

Heeeeeey besties.

This was supposed to be a fun, light weight, fluffy filler chapter as I have an exam this Friday and couldn’t give the tour the depth it deserved. All that to say I literally wrote 20 pages of fluff. This is sort of my niche in terms of long term fic writing. Most recently I was writing entire AUs in the terms of domestic vignettes of “slice of life” moments as someone called it. These don’t really further the plot. The goal was to give the idea of what their life could be if the plot stopped here.

Masterpost with chapters 1-3

AO3 Link

The title comes from Lover (Taylor Swift). I also highly recommend Cruel Summer and Daylight. Theres also an All of the Girls You’ve Loved Before reference. Each small vignette is separated by a lyric that I thought of when writing. If Taylor Swift had to name this she would call it “The More Lover Chapter.” Thats what this is. Every bold and italicized lyric is a change in scene.

Okay, as usual, thank you to the besties. Especially to @ms1818 who i have to directly credit with the ‘on both knees’ part in the very end :)

All’s well that ends well to end up with you

The sun is not yet rising on the horizon when the District Two prep team, escort, and Enobaria herself burst through the door of Cato’s bedroom the morning after the games. Neither Cato nor Clove’s eyes are fully open when Clove is physically ripped out of the bed and her otherwise naked body is wrapped in a cotton towel.

“Thanks to your little display last night, you two have bought yourselves an exclusive interview with Caesar before we go home. Great job, you two.” Enobaria is clearly just as exhausted as they are, if the robe and cup of coffee in her hand are anything to go by. She rubs at her eyes and Clove takes in more of her appearance, from the messy ponytail with flyaway hairs around her face, to the slippers she had not yet changed out of. If Clove were to guess, Enobaria had been pulled out of bed just the same as she was, not too long ago.

Cato tries to flip on his stomach, tugging Clove’s pillow over his head to block out the light brought on by the ring lights provided by the prep team. It’s ripped off of him by Clove herself, moments before she is being forced into a chair with makeup being plastered on her at the same time they start to comb out any knots from her long hair.

He grumbles into the pillow still under his face, before flipping back to lay spine side down. “What did we do wrong, Enobaria?” Cato firmly bunches the sheets around his hips, before pushing himself up to lean against the headboard.. “We followed your rules.”

“Your whole little display of affection- lust, affection, possession I don’t give a fuck what we call it- made national headlines.” Enobaria steps back and Clove lunges towards the coffee in her hands, leaving the girl to lean back in the prep team’s chair with what can only be described as a glare. “Uh uh. Get your own, not my fault you were up all night.” She warns Clove, shooting them a look that clearly tells them that she knows they were up all night.

“Cato, can you…” Clove runs a hand over her face, earning a disapproving gasp from the makeup girl who had been trying so intentionally to make Clove look as if she hadn’t missed a night of sleep in her eighteen years of life. She knows from the look on his face, that no, he would not be getting up and walking around the apartment in the state of undress that they had finally fallen asleep in. “Oh, whatever.”

“Unbelievable.” Enobaria mumbles with a disapproving shake of her head. “Fucking unbelievable.”

“Pretend to be shocked Enobaria, stupid looks really good on you.” Clove snaps, tilting her head back as her team frantically takes concealer to her collarbones and neck. In her peripheral vision, she can see Cato staring with a smug little smile.

Fast forward two hours, and they are standing just off stage yet again, as Caesar begins rambling about his exclusive interview to another packed audience. How they gathered a full studio so early in the day and at such short notice is nothing short of annoying.

“I can’t believe we have to do this.” Cloves hissed through teeth that are clenched into a smile, digging her nails into his bicep where her hand is purposefully wrapped around.

“Not my fault you couldn’t keep your hands off of me after your interview.” Cato taunts with that infuriating smirk plastered on his face as he pinches her hip playfully. He tugs her closer by the long black tulle of her skirt.

“Give me a break, you’ve wanted this for years,” She huffs, pulling her other arm away from the stylist who is fiddling with golden bracelets on her free wrist. There was no ulterior motive with this morning’s outfit, at the very least. It was far simpler and yet nicer than anything she’d ever worn back home. A tight black dress that only covered her left shoulder, with fabric that really only fell to the middle of her thighs at most. There was a sheer black skirt that fell over the dress from her waist to the floor which would drag if not for the tall heels they once again put her in.

He was coordinated in all black, of course he was, this was too important of a moment to have them look anything less than flawless together. She believed that the all black look for the two of them, from his suit jacket to a dress that somehow was perfectly fitted to her, was chosen to highlight their intensity for both the games but also each other. Of course when she asked why they chose this during the prep period, the answer was far less thought out. It’s just what they could do with the time they had.

“You’ve wanted it too, don’t act shy now. At least this will make telling everyone back home easier.” Cato reminds her, grabbing her by the chin and directing her to look up into his face. He takes in the look of her, golden crown of a victor incorporated delicately in the low curly gathering of her hair at the base of her neck. How they manage to make her look so girly and yet so unnervingly powerful he will never understand, but he also knows part of it is something uniquely Clove that he has loved for a long, long time.

She’s looking up at him in turn, a coy little smile on her face as she soaks in the reflection of herself in his own golden crown, before her eyes trail lower from his eyes to his lips, and she stops herself before raising to try to capture him. “What I would have given to see the look on those bitchy faces in the academy when they realized you’re not for them-”

“Jealous?”

“Why would I be?” Clove flashes him a wicked grin. “I’ve got what they all want.” Be it victory. Be it him. Be it both.

They can hear Caesar announcing them, and the roaring applause that could only mean they are expected to enter.

“What do you say we give ‘em a good show?” He whispers in her ear, and she can hear the smile in his voice when he does.

“When do we do anything less?”

They step into the stage lights in perfect time, a perfect fluidity that could only be forged by years of moving in sync with one another. There's an edge to their smiles, something just the right side of unhinged that only the other could find home in. Clove realizes with a sharp pull in her chest that this is the first time the world would ever see them side by side, but even more so they would be seen side by side with their hard earned show of victories on their heads.

Clove doesn’t hear whatever Caesar says when Cato pulls her firmly to his side. The audience is absolutely wild when she tucks her legs over his knee, when his thumb steadily drums along her hip.

There's a juxtaposition in here somewhere of the brutality in which they won their games to the way they now publicly curl into each other. Or maybe this has the same tone of possession as when they made their final, respective kills. Doesn’t really matter now, does it?

“I think we all have a lot of questions here, for our lethal lovers, am I right?” Caesar pimps, before turning to look at the two of them. “Now I for one could not imagine a more stunning, terrifying duo, that’s for certain. Clove…there is clearly a long history here. When exactly did you two meet.”

She can tell you the day, the exact moment, actually.

“She’s just crazy! Don’t take it too personally.” Came the voice of some little annoying blonde girl, who helped her redheaded friend off the ground. “She’s got no friends so she takes it out on us.”

“I hope they pick her for the games soon, and just get rid of her.”

Clove’s not unused to the cruel remarks. At ten, she is the smallest in not only her class, but every class above her too. The comments never bother her, though Enobaria has always told her that people are only jealous when you’re the best.

She’s sharpened the practice knife just enough for it to actually draw the blood when she holds it to an opponent, and as the instructors get her up and face her with her next she is surely glad for her forethought.

He’s much bigger than her already, probably a head taller. There’s a smug smile on his face that she wanted to physically carve off.

“Clove. Cato. Meet your competition.” The trainer says, placing them a few feet apart. “You’re the best tens. Make each other better. No serious injuries. And don’t kill each other, you’ve got-” He looks at his clipboard and nods with approval. “Six or Seven years. Plenty of time.”

While he walks away, the blonde kid looks down at her with a dismissive cross of his arms over his child-sized torso. “You’re the best girl we’ve got? Good for me, I guess, you’ll make my win all the easier.”

She doesn’t even dignify him with a response, just narrows her jade eyes and flicks her wrist in his direction.

He ducks to the left just in time to avoid a knife embedded in his right shoulder (He’s right handed, she can tell from the way he crosses right over left), and escapes with only a graze to the skin of his shoulder. She’s impressed, truthfully, with the way he anticipated and avoided the hit.

Besides, this is just the first of many scars she gives him.

Cato is fuming all the rage his little ten year old body can allow, and when he reaches for her neck Clove gracefully slips out of his way just late enough that his hand makes contact with the wall behind her with a satisfying crunch of his finger tips. Clove laughs as she watches him pull back his hand, flexing and extending his fingers to ward off the ache that built under the surface of his skin that she has somehow already weaseled her way under.

“Oh you’re a little psycho bitch.”

“That’s the best you can do? Psycho Bitch? really?” She asks sweetly, before her foot makes contact with the side of his left knee and brings him down. “I think you’re going to make this so easy for me. Not much inside that head, is there?”

As she tries to slip by, unimpressed by her opponent and his lack of creativity in his insults. She’s been called worse by her own grandmother, when she found her with the dead field mouse in her hand the previous summer.

Cato grabs her by the ankle as she tries to walk off, yanking her sharply and causing her to fall right on top of him.

Clove shoves him away from her with both hands, wanting nothing more than to dig her heel into his jaw to prevent him from ever giving anyone else one of those annoying little grins of triumph.

“I can’t wait to kill you.” She nearly growls, pushing out of his grasp and forcing herself to her feet.

“Don’t worry, i’ll make it a good show when I take you out.” Cato promises in return, pushing himself to his feet with what little dignity he had left.

That isn’t for the world to know, though, no. That's part of the story that is intimately theirs, and theirs alone. When Clove’s hands squeeze his, she knows he got the message.

I know, but some things are ours.

“Oh we were..what? 10? 11?” Clove cocks her head, and when he nods she knows that he knows the specifics as well as she does. “We were training. The best in our classes. It was about time they put us together, no one could keep up with either of us. They Paired us up, told us we were partners now, and that was that.”

“How right they were, Partners indeed you are.” Caesar touches his hand to his heart, and the expected awww in response. He directs the next towards Cato. “We heard when you met..but when did you know there was something more than training partners?”

“Well would you know we were supposed to go into the games together?” Cato reveals, and the way his hand tightens on her hip wordlessly tells her that they aren’t getting this story either. The gasp from the audience feeds the fire of his storytelling “I know, I know, I’m glad that didn’t work out either. Being the best has its perks. Why waste your best on one game when you can have two winners.”

This long, hard fought for story was theirs and theirs alone. He’d give them the minimum details, but they knew the truth would be buried deep, shared only between the two of them.

“It wasn’t allowed. You know, dating, any of that in the academy.” He leaves out how that was more strongly enforced after a certain fifteen year old Kentwell girl, eighteen years prior, who shifted the view of the academy to truly see the weakness that love and intimacy would bring. “We were absolutely dedicated to training anyway. We were what…fifteen? But you know..things just happen.” And oh did they happen.

“Get off of me you…..you…god you stupid whore.” Clove shoves her hands firmly into his chest from her place under him, a hand to hand match gone wrong resulting in her pinned under him, his thighs bracketing either side of her hips. “Get off of me.”

“Oooooh that's a new one.” Cato teases, deftly gathering both her hands above her head in his left hand, effectively pinning both her wrists out of his way. “Thought you didn’t care what I did?”

“Or who.” Clove reminds, flexing her wrists hard in an attempt to free them, which only results in his grip tightening. “I don’t care but I don’t want you fucking up my training and my shot at the games because you’re whoring yourself out.”

It was after hours, of course. They’d never so openly bicker if the room had been full of their competition. They were a united front if nothing else. It was a privilege only given to a few candidates each class, and once they turned fifteen they were naturally the lucky two who were given the honor of full time access. Noone had a doubt the two of them would make good use of it, taking their training to the next level in only the way that Cato and Clove would.

Fifteen had changed a lot of things, beyond just their training.

They were just so familiar with each other, of course they noticed when things started to.. shift.

At least that's what they would have told you.

“Whoring myself out, that's what you’re calling it?”

“Oh I’m not the only one calling it that, that blonde bitch talks all about it in the locker room. Like you’re her fucking conquest and we should all be jealous that-”

And god if she could she would punch that look right off his face when the word comes out of her mouth, when he leans down far far too close to her face for her liking.

“I see, I see.” Cato whispers, just inches away from her ear, and he doesn’t miss the way her entire body tenses underneath him. “You are jealous, baby.”

“No i’m not-” Clove turns her face the other direction, facing the wall and not him. “Don’t call me that, i’m not your baby, either.”

“Sure you are.” Cato dismisses, mouth still hovering far too close to the skin of her neck for comfort.

“How would you feel if it were YOUR classmates talking about fucking me? You wouldn’t be to happy about how it affects your training-”

The way the hand that is not on her wrist tightens significantly on her hip causes her to whips her head over to look at him with that same snide smile on her face. “Oh are you jealous now? Of a made up scenario.”

“No.” He inhales, but he’s pulled back and is looking with a look she can only relate to a lion in the final moments before sinking its teeth into its prey. Clove is sick to realize she does not entirely dislike the feeling of being the prey in question. “Noone’s allowed to touch you, they know that.”

“What the fuck do you mean noone’s allowed? You don’t own me, you dickhead.” Clove’s angry now, and she tries her hardest to break free from under him, but by the combination of hands above her head and him holding her down by her hips she is completely stuck. “You’re just my training partner, you don’t get to decide shit about my life.”

“Just your training partner-” Cato actually laughs, head back laughing before he’s leaning down. She doesn’t even have time to tell him to wipe that stupid look off his face before he’s kissing her.

He’s actually fucking kissing her right on the training room floor. The hand on her waist has trailed up to hold her cheek, and he’s loosened his grasp on her wrist just enough that one of her hands sneaks free. When she laced her fingers into the hair at the base of his skull, he is sure she’s going to try to break his neck. When instead, she pulls him closer to her, he finds himself smiling despite her biting his lower lip.

“I think we can all agree that we are very glad we did not have to see the two of you up against each other. Though it would have been an incredible fight, I’m sure!” Caesar responds, and Clove simply tightens the grip of her knees on Cato’s. While she may not have said it yet, she knows Enobaria was right all those years ago now. She'd thank her for separating their games later.

The interview passes the same way. Volleying answers back and forth between each other. Giving just enough to satiate the needs of the crowd, but never too much.

Yes we sort of got together at fifteen.

Yes we really got together at seventeen, when he came home from the games.

No, they had no doubt watching each other in the games, they’ve always been the best.

“Well, before I let you two go home-” The crowd makes a coherent sound of disappointment, which Caesar settles. “Now I’m sure we’ll be seeing plenty of these two, no need for disappointment!” He turns to face the two of them, practically one body from how close they have intertwined through the interview. “What are you going to do now that you’re victors?”

Clove only looks at Cato with a raise of her eyebrows and her signature smirk, and when he mirrors her expression in return, she knows they have the same thing in mind.

Take me out, and Take Me Home, you’re my lover

Her head is on his lap as the train races home, his long fingers combing through the length of her soft hair. She had pulled the pins from her hair and its fans out on legs, where she had tried without success to nap for the last hour of their trip home. They didn’t even have the chance to change after the interview, when Enobaria and Brutus rushed them onto the train to get them out of the Capitol before any other opportunities to exploit their relationship arose.

“Just wear that for when you get home.” Enobaria suggested, before she and Brutus turned to retreat and leave them alone. They have earned their privacy together. Enobaria pauses and turns to suggest, or rather demand, “If you two are going to do anything, can you just pull the skirt up, don’t take the whole thing off, it’s way more work than it’s worth to re-lace the back.”

They hadn’t though. Clove tried to sleep on him to mentally prepare for what they’d face back home. Plenty of talk, disapproving looks from trainers, and endless scowls from girls who thought they had a chance at Cato. There would be her grandmother and maybe even his family, who was always far kinder to her than her own had been. While most would have seen this tiny girl as no match, Clove had pushed him to be a victor all on his own right. How could they want anything more?

They reach home in what feels like no time at all, as the brakes of the high speed train push them back on the couch. They are sitting at the tail end of the train, where he can look out at the districts passing behind them. “We’re almost there, look at this.”

It wasn’t Cato’s first time pulling into this station, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last, but he didn’t want her to miss the feeling of that first rush of your district fawning over you. “I remember pulling up last year. Brutus told me you never forget the faces. I don’t remember much of them, really, I was just thinking that i’d have to hunt you down if you weren’t at the platform waiting.”

They peak over the back of the couch together, watching as the mountains disappear and their home envelops them. He takes her by the hand and leads her backwards to the center of the train where they’ll step out soon.

Enobaria and Brutus meet them in the center of the train, and they wear matching looks of pride as they look at their victors together. There is years worth of training, respect, and skill between the four of them. And now, there is endless pride, as well.

Brutus is the one who reaches down to straighten Clove’s little gold wreath around her head, and even from him, pride for the girl is palpable in the air. “It was a little crooked.”

The train lurches to a stop and Cato’s hands are on the bare skin of her arms, rubbing up and down both to steady her and to comfort her in the last few moments of unknown.

Their escort is first, who introduces Clove as if the whole District hasn’t known her from her literal birth.

Clove is situated right behind the sliding door, Cato, Enobaria, and Brutus standing just a few steps behind her in a small semi circle. The doors fly open at just the right moment, and Clove steps forward and out onto the train platform. The three of them stay on the train behind her, if only for a few moments, to let her soak it in.

She understands what he meant, when he said you never forget the faces of the people in your district.

Clove soaks in the absolutely enraged scowls of the girls in her class, who look right past her and into the train at Cato. There's a few boys in her class, she notices, who had always looked at her with a certain fear that now translates to something she doesn’t care to analyze.

She catches her grandmother towards the front. She isn’t near old enough to be considered a grandparent, just around fifty years old. She had become Clove’s grandmother at thirty four, and full time caregiver at 37, and often blamed Clove for aging her prematurely. Looking at her now, looking all the more like Clove and her mother before her, anyone who didn’t already know would now know who she was. There is no love in her face, but there is certainly gratification. She would take the credit for Clove’s ruthlessness, for turning her into the victor that her mother had failed to be, for sure. There's a different kind of smile on her face today, one Clove’s never seen. It is not the kind as when she would smack Clove across the face until she cried as a toddler, or the sick and twisted one from when she made Clove watch her mother die over and over every year on her birthday. That one is the same smile Clove wore in her games, as she carved into flesh over and over and over.

Clove thinks for a moment, maybe she got this blood lust from her. She can’t imagine it coming from her mom.

Today, for the first time in her life, Clove sees the woman actually smile at her. It isn’t bright and bold like those of her mother, but it is a smile nonetheless. Yes, she was taking the credit for the woman Clove had become. She had raised a victor after all, it seems. Clove wants to scowl, to remind her that it was not thanks to her that she was standing up here victor behind her name..but it was. Instead Clove flashes that same menacing smile in return, directly at the woman who made her this way.

On the opposite side of the crowd she catches sight of a man, not even Enobaria’s height, around the same age of her mentors. She knows him, of course she does. He had shown up once a year for the first ten of her life, then never came again once she went to the academy to train. There’s a couple of little girls with him, maybe 11 or 12, whom Clove has never known the existence of until this moment. Turns out she technically had siblings, who knew. Clearly her father was not sending those two into the academy, no. He just made a bold- and stupid– choice to show up here, to try to claim part of her now that she had won and made the name for herself. A lot of audacity for the man who had begged her mother not to have her, begged for her to not throw away their future.

He had never even had a chance to compete in the games, like the pathetic excuse of a man he was. There was a reason she went in as a Kentwell girl, and not as whatever he even was.

Noone misses the eye roll she sends in his direction, and the message is beyond clear. This is not your victory, this is not your victor, this is not even your daughter to claim.

Clove is pulled out of her spite, when she feels a hand on each of hers. To her right is Enobaria, to her left is Cato, and when they raise her hands above her head, there is nothing but pride, adoration, and even love radiating from them.

These are the people who made her into the version of herself that could become a victor.

Enobaria must nod at him, because she drops Clove’s hand as he wraps both his arms around her. He twists her to face him, and before she can protest and realize what's happening, he’s bending her backwards as he catches her mouth with his own, hands firmly holding her up by her waist. She grabs his face with her hand in response, and can't help but smile against his lips when she hears the response from their very own District.

The first people who actually greet her off the platform is his family. The entirety of them with the same blonde hair and blue eyes, there was no mistaking the blood they all shared.

His mother is first, a tall woman half a foot taller than Clove, who hugs the girl like she is her own. “Oh we are so proud of you, Clove.” The woman squeezes her, and Clove finds herself wondering if her own mother would hug this way. She whispers in Clove’s ear, surely her words are just between the two of them. “And we couldn’t ask for anyone better for Cato, either.”

His father, who looks alarmingly like Cato plus about twenty years, is next, fully picking her up in a hug. “We of course wanted you to win, but we didn’t know what this one was going to do if you didn’t.”

Cato looks down, a redness flushing from his neck to his ears at the commentary. Maybe he hadn’t been as good at hiding it as he thought.

Next though, oh next is maybe her favorite reunion of all.

Cato’s toddler sister tugs at the skirt of her dress, those same shining blue eyes she loves more than anything staring up at her with child-like innocence and wonder. Clove always wondered if Cato ever looked like that, all the good in the world in tiny blue eyes and soft blonde hair, before training got to him.

“Oh hello, Cora Jade,” Clove whispers, kneeling to her level. She’s nearly three, now, and Clove can remember the day she was born like it was yesterday.

It was pretty standard practice in two, to have children far enough apart that one would be done with training and hopefully a victor by the time the other would even be of school age. She didn’t experience it, obviously, but she remembers being fifteen years old when Cato brought her home with him after school to meet his new sister.

Clove was terrified to touch her, she was barely a week old, and Clove was good at nothing but harming. She’d never even seen a baby before her, and was literally throwing up that night when she realized her mother was holding her at that age.

He had been effortlessly good at it. Tiny little Cora who looked like a doll in his arms, and he wore this goofy, love struck smile that Clove secretly burned into the back of her mind to remember forever. Looking back she thinks that had been one of the first moments she had actually fallen a bit for him.

She had watched her grow up with Cato, and had learned so much about him, too. The big, brutal, short tempered boy at training was almost polar opposite to the one who carried around his little sister on his shoulders, who fell asleep reading her little books when they babysit her for his parents.

Clove had even gone to see her by herself for a few hours last year, during Cato’s games. It was one of the only promises he ever asked of her. Make sure Cora would know him, even if he hadn’t come back.

Clove surprisingly enjoyed it, and when the three year old throws her little arms around her neck now, she does not shy away from her.

“I miss-ed-ed you.” Comes from the little girl, as she buries her little face in the crook of Clove’s neck.

“We missed you too.” Clove promises, not for a second caring about the blatant change in her demeanor from the girl the whole district had known and watched in the games. They had finally won, and life was far far too short.

She stands with Cora wrapped around her, and as she rubs the little girls back, she and Cato share a smile. His hands wrap around her shoulders, and he tickles his sister’s side to get her to giggle and look up at her actual brother.

“So now what do we do?” Cato teases her, as he pries his sister into his own arms.

“Mmm.” Clove hums as if she is considering, hands falling onto her hips. “Take me home.”

I want to teach you how forever feels

“You know you don’t have to be that precise, it’s just bacon.” Comes from behind her at the same moment she feels a hand wrap around her waist, when his chin comes to rest on her shoulder.

It catches her off guard and the knife in her hand flies to her side, aiming without even thinking for the bare upper body of whoever snuck up behind her. It may be months since the games, but there’s a paranoia that does not leave so quickly, Clove has found.

Her wrist is caught in his hand instinctively, and when he pressed his thumb between the tendons in her wrist the knife fell from her hand and to the kitchen floor.

“For fucks sake, Cato, you can’t sneak up on me like that!” Clove sighs, before leaning on her hands against the countertop to ground herself back into reality. She is in their home. She is safe. It’s just him. She’s just making breakfast. “I’m going to actually kill you one of these days, and I won’t even be trying to.”

“I think i’m pretty safe, I know your next move before you do.” He hums into her neck, his hands trailing up over her legs and sliding under the shirt-- his shirt may he point out– she decided was good enough to cook in that late summer morning. “Seriously though, you don’t need to cut that perfectly.”

“Some of us have skills we want to maintain.” Clove teases, as she leans her head back against his chest. “Noone wants to be trained or mentored by someone who lost all their own technique.” She teases, and yeah, maybe she is a bit neurotic in the way she slices exactly along the fat line of the meat in front of her with a new knife from the block. “We start after my tour, and I know I for one want to be training future winners.”

Cato grins into her neck, and firmly kisses down from her jawline to her collarbone, planning to lift her onto the counter the exact moment that they hear the front door open. He groans into the side of her neck, both very used to this type of morning interruption. Clove stabs into the cutting board, when she twists her head over his shoulder to call out to their uninvited but not quite unwelcome guests.

“How the fuck do you get in here?”

“We all have the same locks. Not hard to get a key.” Comes the voice of her mentor, who settles herself right down at the kitchen table. Brutus is only a step behind, sitting next to Enobaria expectantly. “Glad to see you’re–” She takes in Cato’s bare chest and Clove’s bare legs, the two of them combined to make a single outfit worth of clothing “–mostly dressed this morning.”

“You let yourself into our house, what do you expect?” Cato reminds, grabbing a handful of perfectly sliced strawberries before hopping up to sit on the counter top beside Clove.

She swats at his hand as it dips into the fruit bowl. “That’s for the pancakes-”

“Never thought i’d be listening to a little domestic dispute over pancakes.” Brutus remarks, already helping himself to making a fresh pot of coffee. “I’ll take chocolate chips in mine.”

“This isn’t a restaurant, Brutus.” Clove mumbles, but opens the cabinet above her head to get to the bag of chocolate anyhow.

“We kept you two alive.” Enobaria reminds them, separating sugar into two coffee mugs besides Brutus. Notably, she is not caring to make any for Cato nor Clove. “You know. Trained you. Got you sponsors. You can make us breakfast.” She holds out the mugs to Brutus, who fills both before they sit back at the island. “I think i’d like an eggwhite omelet. Spinach.”

“You can have pancakes. That's what I’m making.” Clove waves the knife over her work, before going back to meticulous chopping. “You know, Cato also got me sponsors and kept me alive, and he isn’t asking for special requests.”

“Okay mom, we’ll eat what you make us.” Brutus mocks her, voice teasingly high, which results in him and Enobaria laughing to themselves.

“I think you give Cato more than just breakfast requests, Clove.”

She rolls her eyes and finishes her prep work, Cato just chuckling next to her between bites of strawberry.

“Any other special requests? Do you need your pancakes cut into bite sized pieces so you don’t choke?”

“You offer Clove the same consideration?”

The knife that lands between Enobaria and Brutus’ heads is not meant to hit them.

This is our place, we make the call

It had just felt right, for her to end up in his house. Sure, she had been given the one directly beside him, across the street from Brutus, so that the four of them made up a corner of the village on their own. She had moved some of her things into her assigned home, but they quickly realized she was spending most days and nights next door with him anyway.

It was a natural progression, when his house became theirs, within months of returning as victors.

He finds her laying on the floor in the room directly next to theirs, staring at the ceiling on that exceedingly rainy afternoon.

“What are you doing?” Cato calls from the doorframe, where he is leaning against it but looking down at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Trying to decide what to do with all the extra space in the houses.” She answers honestly, her arms contently crossed over her ribs as she stares up at the white ceiling. “I was thinking we could use this room for practice space, but we’ll end up with a knife through the wall.”

He comes to lay directly beside her, side by side and just staring up at the ceiling. “You could take up knitting as a hobby and use this for that.” Cato deserves the gentle smack with the back of her hand that lands on his chest. He brings that hand to his lips and kisses the back of her fingers gently. “Maybe crocheting”

“Yeah, and you can use this for when you take up Yoga for anger management.” Clove rolls her eyes, but leans her head on his upper arm anyway.

“We don’t need to figure it out right now. We can just save it.” Cato suggests, lifting his head up when he experiences a sense of wetness on his neck. He cranes his head to realize the window is wide open, and now littering the floor with rain. “Open window?”

“I always liked the sound of rain.” She explains, turning on her side to face him. “Thunderstorms, really. But I liked the sound of rain. And the smell.”

Cato props himself up on his arm to face her, and an idea spreads across his face. “Let’s go outside then.”

“What? Why would we go outside when we can listen right here?”

He pulls her forward by her waist, pressing his forehead to hers. “Because we can.”

There was a time when neither of them were guaranteed more rainstorms, more sunshine, or homes with two much space for two people. Clove seems to understand that and nods, pushing herself to her feet.

He practically races her down the stairs, beat out by her only because she is so much more nimble than he is, and she can jump over the banister at the end of the stairs before he can.

Clove’s at the back door before he can even turn the corner, and she nearly yells when he lifts her up by her waist to get out there first. They stumble onto the back porch together, laughing loudly enough that surely their neighbors would be able to hear if their windows were open as well.

He sits on their top step, just out of the line of the direct rain, but close enough that they’d get misted by it.

She settles beside him, his arm falling over her shoulders. She laces her fingers together with his, and her head comes to rest on his shoulder.

They sit in silence, enjoying the feeling of cool summer rain on their skin, on the smell of petrichor mixed with a summer haze.

In a few months they would be on her tour, and then not long after that they’d be responsible for mentoring. They’d have to get back to training, back to making sure there was pride being brought to District Two.

But for now they had this summer rain and a youth that let them enjoy it. Wasn’t this what they won for?

Maybe, if they were lucky, things could always be like this.

Thunder cracks in the distance, and Clove finds herself curling in closer to his arms.

“Cato?” Clove murmurs, a feeling she can only describe as contentment washing over her with the rain. “Tell me you love me.”

Cato tightens his arm around, turning his head to kiss her temple. “I love you, baby.”

“I know.” She sighs in response. It was not the first time and it was not the last, but Clove never quite forgets how lucky she is to hear them in her adult life. “I love you, too.”

All of you, all of me, Intertwined.

Clove’s a sucker for the moments after. The times where he holds her on top of him by her waist, her face in the crook of his neck as she catches her breath, feeling him trying to capture his own under her as well.

She can remember being so scared of it, when they were teenagers. Plenty of fear mongering from her grandmother and Enobaria both resulted in a girl who wasn’t afraid of much other than this.

Looking back she can understand their concern, but her own fear was completely unfounded.

He had been so understanding, never pushy or anything. She had been willing to do..other things..to makeup for the actual act of sex, things she had gotten very good at over the years may she add.

He went to the games, nearly died, and Clove decided life was just too short to be so scared of something that she quickly found out could be so great.

“What’re you thinking about?” Cato asks into her hair, his hand gently stroking at her lower back. “You stop breathing when you think sometimes.”

“This.” She answers honestly, giving him a playful raise of her eyebrow before she rolls her hips over his. Clove smirks as he groans under her, turning his head to the side.

“You’re literally going to kill me, Clove. We literally just-”

She cuts him off with her hand trailing between them, down the broad expanse of his chest. “Can’t keep up?” Clove taunts, a sickly sweet edge to her voice. “I expected better.”

Cato practically growls as he flips on top of her.

I used to think love would be burning red, but it's golden

“What are you looking at me like that for?” Clove squints in his general direction, tucking the edges of the sheet conveniently under her upper arms to hold it around her bare chest. She rolls onto her left side to face him, her right hand coming up to stroke her thumb over his face.

Cato’s expression could only be described as lovestruck. His thumb traced over her forehead, down to her cheek, down over the corner of her mouth, and trailed down beyond her throat. He realizes, as he memorizes her freckles, her evergreen eyes, the long expanse of her eyelashes, that he is staring the rest of his life in the face. The entirety of his future is in his hands, under his finger tips, giving him a look that is somehow both inquisitive and annoyed. He’s truly won, he realizes that at this moment, nearly five months after her games. He’s won The Hunger Games. He won her. He won the rest of his life, and if it were exactly like this, he would die happy.

Of course there are other things he wants. At nearly nineteen he’s still dumb enough to say it, that there's nothing he wants more than to marry her. He can still picture that white lace dress from his reaping day, and if he imagines hard enough, he can imagine in her something not too unlike it, holding his hands in front of their district. She’s a little too fiery for lace, but maybe she’d consider it just for him that day.

“Seriously, what's the look for, Cato?”

“I’m going to marry you.” Stumbles out before he can stop it, the dreamy tone in his voice washed away when he realizes what he actually said out loud. “I mean- some day.”

“Not when we’re teenagers.” Clove warns, but she curls her body up into his anyway. She tucks her head against his chest, letting her body melt into his embrace. “And I believe you’d have to ask. Beg, really, You’re going to have to beg. On two knees.”

“Mmm…maybe around the 75th Games then.” He concedes, wrapping his arms around her shoulders, gently rubbing his hands over her bare upper arms. “We can take the attention to us, again, could be fun. Especially if Two doesn’t win next year. We can make it about us.”

Clove actually laughs, the sound vibrating through his chest and right to the center of his heart where it tugs hard.

“Sure. We can revisit then. You aren’t stealing the show of my Victory tour from me, next month. But like I said, I’m making you beg.” Clove’s voice is teasing, but there is no real edge to it. No sharpness. It’s not abnormal, really. They’d honestly be older than most people tended to get married in their district by that point, it was just a topic for later. Clove tilts back her head to look up at him, eyebrows scrunched together intently as she looks at him. “What’s next, you want a big yellow dog, too?”

He gives half a laugh as he cups her face in his hand once again. “No, I just want our kids to have these freckles.” He means it, Clove can tell from the deeply earnest tone in his voice. “At the very least, the freckles. I wouldn’t mind the eyes too.”

Clove rolls her eyes at him now, but she still gives him something between a smirk and a smile. “You think there's half a chance of that? Your whole family looks exactly the same, there's not a chance in hell that they aren’t gonna end up blonde and blue eyed with nothing from me.”

“One’ll be blonde, yeah. The girl’s gonna look like you though.” He says it so confidently she almost believes him, and she genuinely believes he can picture it. “They’ll have no choice but to be victors, too.”

“Well obviously, we aren’t raising losers.” Clove scoffs, but there's an understanding there. Trained or not, there was a better than average chance any of their kids would end up reaped. Especially, considering the long story of Clove and her mother. They loved a story, they loved drama. What better way to continue it than by throwing in the daughter of two victors, granddaughter of a tragic tribute girl. They had to be prepared for the inevitability of it. “That would be so embarrassing for us. Loser kids.” She tucks her face back into the hollow of this throat. “This conversation is also one for waaaay later, Cato. But yes. No losers here.”

Cato is grinning wide and excited at her, when his arm slips under her to flip her underneath him. He’s kissing down the center line of her body, starting at her chin and working downwards. Yes, Looking at him, you would think she has given him the entire world. Cato lifts his head when he reaches the bottom of her rib cage.

“I’ll also take the dog, if you’re offering.”

Clove shoves his head down and under the covers.

Can I go where you go, can we always be this close, for ever and ever

“Absolutely not, go home Cato.” Enobaria shakes her head, blocking the door of the train. “I’m not dealing with the two of you for two weeks. You can see her in 14 days, after tour is over.”

“That’s not going to work, Enobaria.” Brutus warns from behind her, heading to the back of the train car. “Just let him on, save us all the grief.”

“I’m coming.” Cato practically shoves past her, to end up with sharply manicured nails grasping at his throat, shoving him backwards off of the train.

“This isn’t your tour, you don’t get special tour privilege for fucking the victor.” Enobaria snaps, as if she had not been eating meals in his kitchen once a week for six months. “For the next two weeks, I’m her mentor for the last time. That includes making sure this is about her and not your little lover fest.”

“He’s coming.” Comes from behind him, from the girl neither even saw sneak up. “Like you said. It’s my tour. I want him there. Besides, you know they’ve already made him matching clothes, it would be a shame to put them to waste.” Clove steps on the train besides Enobaria, a wide, proud grin plastered on her face. She holds out her hand to him, inviting him with her. “Let’s go.”

I love you, ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard

#always remember we're burned for better tag #ARWBFB TAG #clato fanfic #the hunger games fanfic #the hunger games fanfiction #cato and clove #clato #THG fanfic #This has references of mild child abuse as well as sex

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