#mineheadcanon

[cloverskentwells]

ficlet: inspired by this scene from the show never have i ever

when the rule change is announced, shortly after the hunt for katniss draws a dead end and the two cannons in quick succession of each other combined with the fact that marvel never met up with them announce the very probable fact that he's dead, cato and clove are left facing one another, shocked into stillness by the news. their weapons lie discarded at their sides, gathering dirt and whatever else is lying under the arena's soil to add little dark specks among the blood. the resounding silence echoes around them in a stark contrast from claudius templesmith's booming voice that had swept the arena just seconds before.

clove recovers first - out of the two of them, she'd always considered herself the faster one - and shrinks back into a persona she's comfortable with, her default shell of biting sarcasm and scathing sharp wit wrapping around her comfortably like a blanket to a newborn. "so it looks like we're the only two left," she mutters slowly, more to herself than for cato's benefit. "and we're in the finals, apparently." cato grunts in confirmation.

"it's awesome that you made it this far," he says slowly, and she can visibly see him regaining his wits in real time, the transformation obvious in the unsubtle changes of his facial expressions - unlike her, he had no practice in carefully controlling and mastering what he allowed his face to reveal. clove observes his recovery and takes note of his surprise, which is followed by slow acceptance, and then followed by the dawning of a reality she'd accepted several seconds before him.

naturally, his irritating habit of finding every opportunity to provoke her returns with his recovered senses. it doesn't take long for him to become his typically insufferable self. gathering his weapons and approaching her with the cocky smirk she'd come to associate him with, cato continues his jab. "we'll see how it goes, clover." his large hand settles companionably on her shoulder in a friendly gesture clove decides not to punish. she also doesn't bother to protest at the term of endearment - better cato, anyways, who says it with some modicum of grudging respect and admiration, then marvel (an ally she did not at all "dearly miss") who liked to relentlessly tease her and imply that there was something going on between her and her district partner that existed under the surface of their mutual antagonism and vicious barbed-wire threats.

clove watches him walk away, probably back towards their campsite (because of course he just assumes she'll blindly follow along like he's still the leader of a pack that's mostly dead - or close to it, in peeta's case), incredulously. "what the fuck do you mean by - cato, i'm telling you 'how it'll go' right now!" in a rare moment of weakness that she isn't proud of, she hastily stumbles after him so they can walk side by side as she gets the last word. normally, clove prides herself in not putting that much effort to win a verbal battle against someone, always ready with a cutting remark, but this time he's gotten the better of her.

cato's amused chuckles only agitate her further. "it'll go bad for you! and good for me! because i'm the better tribute and we both know it, you blonde oaf!"

he comes to a stop beside her to laugh, almost hysterically. and clove can't blame him, she can only blame herself for her lame attempt to sass him.

but because she was never one for self awareness, she blames everything but her own behavior. so many factors were responsible. the stupid rule change that meant they were inextricably tied to one another, cato for making it difficult for her to contemplate a reality without his hubris and deep chuckles and strength complementing her own as they fought side by side. cato for being her only tie to home and weakening her so badly she'd begun to consider him a friend. a friend, of all things, when he was supposed to be just some competitive asshole with an ego she could easily check with a well aimed blade at a lethal area.

because he felt the need to worsen her current feeling of indignity, cato smiles down at her - fondly, with crinkling and affectionate eyes as if he has grown to enjoy her presence. like an insane person. "fine, but we can go home together now, you know."

"stop that. we're still enemies. it doesnt change anything, and you know it." she feels the need to regain distance, and fast. hide whatever is the reason for this weird sense of gratitude that claudius templesmith's announcement had drawn out of clove.

"yeah, no shit, i can't stand you," he agrees, although clove doubts his sincerity based on the impish smile he's not working too hard to cover. cato watches her glaring back at him with his arms crossed in an obvious attempt to flex, leaning casually against a tree like he's some unreasonably handsome capitol model endorsing a weird makeup product, as always too confident and assured in his sense of righteousness.

it's a fight she has no chance of winning. with a huff, clove opts to ignore him, resuming the trek to their campsite and keeping him at her back where she doesn't have to deal with visual evidence of his presence.

he laughs lightly behind her, obviously amused by her failure to one-up him. her lips twitch upwards responsively in an exasperated smile that she forcibly suppresses.

[cloverskentwells]

enobaria has an affinity for strategy, and has learned this lesson many times the hard way that the game will go in the direction that will most satisfy the capitol citizenry's interests and wants. regardless of who the best or most deserving tribute is.

she let hope creep into her heart for one stupid moment of weakness that she vows to never allow again when the rule change is announced. the district can have two victors, and that's actually a good outcome for everyone involved - that's relevant to her, anyways. another mentor, another example of a role model, and even if she's partial towards the little one with the knives and irritated by the boy's complete absence of self composure, she can honestly say they both deserve to win.

but she remembers. enobaria understands too well how these little twists work, how they reel in and entrap vulnerable, gullible tributes. she's seen how the public has taken a liking to those kids from twelve and their romantic melodrama, that her kids have no chance now. despite the persona she's carefully crafted over the years of cold and apathetic victor, she still gives in to pity when she watches her tributes rejoice. tragically, they truly and wholeheartedly believe the lie that they're being fed - and why shouldn't they? it's just another part of the lie that they've been forced to accept and cherish their entire lives.

what's worse is that she's not blind, or emotionless. she sees how her tributes soften towards one another. become more trusting, vulnerable, share the same space with a welcoming energy directed towards each other rather than regarding the other as a convenient but disposable ally.

it built up slowly, but still happened. how the little one smiles at the blond's idiocy, how he wipes the blood off her face with his fingers, quiet and unsmiling but still tender, gentle, softer than any two kid would ever dare to be. they're not too far gone to attempt a romance falsehood like twelve, and still respect the dignity of the games and their district, but she knows how this story will end. the same way all stories in panem that involve caring about someone you shouldn't end.

she remains cool, indifferent, because what the hell is she supposed to do at this point? just another pair of dead children walking, unaware of their fates. but enobaria isn't as soulless or uncaring as she would like to be, so she watches with silent but controlled and manageable regret when he defies all expectations of his character archetype and begs her to stay alive for him - on his knees for fuck's sake, even holding her - and when the littler one breaks the first rule of being a district two tribute by displaying weakness and screaming desperately for her partner's aid.

[cloverskentwells]

the 74th hunger games, female careers

don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise, the career girls are an iconic trio of murderous women and besties!! panem's version of the powerpuff girls/bonnie & caroline & elena/brooke & peyton & haley

[cloverskentwells]

when caesar asks her about family back home, she doesn't know how to respond. clove dodges specifics with a standard line about how proud her parents are that she would be bringing glory to their family and representing the district well, and caesar's questioning doesn't extend beyond that moment, but what can she say about a family where most of the members feel like complete strangers to her?

her father works late shifts at the quarry, bringing in a meager income. it was his idea to send her to the academy, lured by the promise of a stipend for each individual student that trained for the games, sent to the potential tribute's families. and she had such a talent with a knife. once she realized she had the opportunity to use that skill on real people someday, clove was hooked, and begged her parents to let her train full time. she was forever grateful that they had said yes, and had done everything they could to help clove achieve this dream of hers.

but she sees her father five minutes a day, and her mother started to shrink away from clove over the years, almost as if she was afraid of her. clove hated when her mother pretended not to be, when she attempted welcoming her home with a hug like she was a weak child in need of a mother's embrace.

and then there were the brothers whom she could only recognize from old family photos and her own compromised memories from when she was a toddler, rendered useless with the passage of time.

the oldest had left before she was born, stationed as a peacekeeper in another district and cutting ties with the family for reasons her parents never talked about. she only knew of his existence, and that he was still alive, because of the portion of his income that he sent home to support his parents. that was marcellus, the forgotten child - then came mason, 15 years older than her, who was a mere ten minutes away working as a miner in the nut, but for some reason could never visit. gunner bothered to make the effort via a yearly dinner with the kentwells before taking off to do god-knows-what on the other side of the district where clearly he must be making some form of money if he was able to live alone.

clove had only ever cared about winning the games and having an impressive collection of sharpened knives and daggers to her name. she had a relatively well-adjusted home life with reliable, working parents and was, by no means, damaged or neglected or brutalized - luckier than many people she knew from back home who suffered those fates. but caesar's question did lead her to briefly wonder what it might have been like to be a real family, with brothers who weren't faceless nobodies only connected to her by blood relation/circumstance, a father who said more than one sentence a day to her, and a mother she could stand to be around.

[cloverskentwells]

headcanons about clove & glimmer & d4 female tribute (i named her cecaelia):

clove & cecaelia are bonded by the fact that they're both much less social and cheery compared to glimmer; glimmer thinks this is cute and calls them "c squared" or "grumpy twins"

clove isn't one to make forced conversation and pretend a friendship/camaraderie exists where it doesn't. but glimmer loves conversation and even temporary friendships. and despite their circumstances she does want to get to know her fellow career girls. cecaelia is more obliging than clove despite being herself reserved and in her own shell, and is more responsive to glimmer's icebreakers. clove remains sullen and quiet when glimmer asks her a question, only bothering with one word responses and a pointed flash of her knife

on the first night, hours after the bloodbath when they set up camp and get ready to sleep, glimmer chatters away and cecaelia listens, indulgently polite. glimmer wears clove down in the dark, and after a lot of tireless efforts at questioning finally gets clove to open up just a crack.

they all discuss what they'll do/how they'll live as a victor. cecaelia will own her own seafood restaurant either in d4 or the capitol if she's lucky enough to be permitted to live there. glimmer will spend money on shiny things and be a glamorous fashion model. clove's plans are less ambitious, and she'll retire to a lone mountainside cabin in the recesses of two.

glimmer, being the girls' girl that she is, immediately starts with the nicknames, calling cecaelia cece and clove... her own damn name, because clove's a lot less agreeable/conflict averse than cece and will pull out a knife if someone is too familiar with her. but even clove slips up and calls them each cece and glim once.

glimmer fixes cecaelia's hair - practically demands to, because according to her how the d4 stylists butchered it is atrocious. she also waxes poetic about what a lovely district cece comes from, with their pretty sea theme and gorgeous eyed-people and the wonderful weather there.

glimmer also admires her fellow career girlies' tokens. very loudly and excitedly, with so much enthusiasm that cecaelia and clove send each other bemused looks over glimmer's head. clove brought with her into the games a gorgeous beaded bracelet - mostly white pearl-like beads with some artfully painted blood red as if it had been dipped into a corpse. cecaelia brought a similar bracelet but it's black string through a simple teal ball. they both - even clove, much to her own surprise - let glimmer grab their arms to admire the bracelets, and snicker when she tells them about losing her own token, a pink diamond ring that had contained an allegedly poisoned spike.

clove loses them both to tracker-jackers, and she wasn't particularly attached to them - they all knew how the games worked and how this would end - and couldn't act like it was a great loss to her. but she still, on some level, misses them afterwards, especially having to deal with a mercurial unstable district partner and a boy who told too many jokes... it was nicer, clove thinks sometimes, when there were girls around.