#picket fences sharp as knives tag

[clatoera]

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. 

[ultralightpoe]

High Infidelity - Coriolanus Snow

Authors Note: Yup. I wrote for him. Hate me for it. (This was also the first time I wrote him so it’s not the best characterization, but hey. It’s been sitting in my drafts foreverrrrrr)

Word Count: 5642

Warnings: Prostitution. Lmao. And really bad writing so be prepared for that.

Apart of the Midnights Album Event

My MAIN Masterlist is here!

(Thank you for the gif @youremyvioleta )

Enjoy!

Lock broken, slur spoken

Wound open, game token

I didn't know you were keeping count

Rain soaking, blind hoping

You said I was freeloading

I didn't know you were keeping count

-

Your mother had always warned you away from him, warning you of the terrible terrible things that came from his family, she used to sit you at the table and plead with you to stay as far away from Coriolanus Snow as you could.

“Everything with that family ends with bloodshed.” She had warned you, telling you to stay away.

You hadn’t, and you never would….. well at least you never thought you would.

You had grown up with Coryo, known eachother since you were just children and had survived a war together. Had gone through starvation together. Back then you hadn’t understood why your mother was so afraid of him, this was the boy that had shared a can of beans with you when you had nothing. And now that the Capitol was back you were still as thick as thieves.

“I’m sorry.” You rush out, staring at your best friend right now, tears sliding your cheeks. “I don’t understand Coryo.”

It had been months since you last saw him, his hair was shorter and whiter now, and his face set into a grim glare. But it was the eyes that were different, they were cold and dark, just making eye contact made you shutter.

You had rushed to the train station to pick him up, an expensive flower in your hand and a wide smile. That had promptly been wiped away the second he got off the train and snapped at you.

The words fuzzed a bit, but it was something along the lines of “I’m warning you to stay away from my family, you freeloading wretch.”

“Do I really need to repeat myself?” The smile he gives you is anything but warm. “What? Now that I’m back you want to tag along all the time? Steal my family's fortune and pretend you’re not a starving leech?”

“Starving Leech? When have I ever taken anything from you?” You bite back, hands curling into fists.

“I can give you an entire list of everything you have taken from my family.” He laughs. “And I promise you that there will be no more favors.”

“You….. I hadn’t realized helping eachother from not starving was a favor. You ate from my table to need I remind you.” You snap, a heat crossing your skin, casting eyes towards a pair of on lookers.

You didn’t have time for this, you had a shift at the med wing.

You said as much to him, enjoying the way his eyes narrowed as he finally took in your medical garb. “We’ll talk later.” He scoffs, and you walk off after that, set on never talking to him again.

-

High infidelity

Put on your records and regret me

I bent the truth too far tonight

I was dancing around, dancing around it

High infidelity

Put on your headphones and burn my city

Your picket fence is sharp as knives

I was dancing around, dancing around it

-

It was nothing but sobs the night your mother passed away, cuddled on the floor of Coryos floor with his arms wrapped around you, trying to keep quiet just in case his grandmother woke up.

She hated tears, always thought them a sign of weakness.

“Shhh.” Coryo whispers, petting your hair back. “It will be okay.”

“What will I do?” You sob, feeling like your chest was caving in. “How will I survive?”

“We’ll find a way.” He whispers, using the pad of his thumb to rub the tears from your cheeks. “I’m sure Tigris can get you a job, and you can move in here if you need. Just take a moment-“

“I can’t. I can’t breathe.” You panic, hand snapping to his jacket as if he could keep you planted to the earth, your breathing ragged panting as your vision begins to blur.

“No. No.” He breathes, fingers snatching your jaw to make you look at him, digging into your skin. “Focus. Breathe. You’re stronger than this. Take. A. Breath.”

You listen, breathing in the same time he does, deep and open, breathing out when he does. Your nerves calm a bit, and you close your eyes as the tears keep falling. He pushes your head until it is laying on his chest. “Your mother just died. Don’t focus on the future, just let the pain settle. You’re safe here. I promise.”

And so you did, letting the sobs free as he held you all night.

-

Do you really want to know where I was April 29th?

Do I really have to chart the constellations in his eyes?

-

“Did….. did you see her?” Tigris asks, keeping close to the doorframe of his room, hugging her arms close to herself as she watches him work at his desk.

He feels himself tense, spine stiffening so much a wave of pain passed over him, doing his best to seem natural about it all. “She will not be coming around anymore if that is what you want to ask.”

He would make sure of it, he would make sure no one took from him or his family ever again. Not that bitch from 12, not Highbottom and not….. you. You whose face filled his brain with sunlight and warmth, you who made his chest melt and hands shake from nerves.

He loved you, always had.

But that couldn’t be anymore. He was set for a pristine life now, he could not let his weakness get in the way. He already risked it more than he should have.

“She missed you. A lot.” Tigris sighs, moving a little closer. “And she…. Well she helped us scrap together money for care packages and rent.”

“I’m sure there was something she could get from it. Don’t worry.” Even as he says it his gut clenches. He didn’t believe it for a second, but this needed to be done.

“She….. Coryo she-“ Tigris seems to stutter over the words, closing her eyes as if just thinking about it dragged her into a wave of pain. He tries not to laugh because what did she have to hurt about? Living the plush life here as he fought for them in 12, fought for them in the games. Risked his life to make sure that girl survived.

“She. What?”

“She….. well once she found out we were short on rent and she had nothing to offer she…. Slept with someone…… for us.”

“How would whoring herself out help us?” He already knew, his heart beating through his chest as his hands began to shake, clenching them into fists so it wouldn’t show. He was going to be sick.

You wouldn’t have. No.

“For money. She made us-“

“GET. OUT.” He sneers, standing quickly. “Get out right now.” He watches his cousin dash from the room with tears sliding down her face, his own kings constricting at the news.

You couldn’t have. You couldn’t have.

Regret laces through his stomach, your face flickering through his mind. Of course you would. You would do anything for him and his family.

-

Storm coming, good husband

Bad omen

Dragged my feet right down the aisle

At the house lonely, good money

I'd pay if you'd just know me

Seemed like the right thing at the time

-

It had been a fools dream long ago that you would marry for love, nothing but a dream of a child that didn’t know better, hadn't let the world destroy her yet.

Now, you knew better. Staring at your soon to be husband, Festus Creed, with a small smile playing at your lips. You were trying to make it seem like you actually loved him, like you actually cared what he was saying as cameras flashed at you both. The light of it blinded you a bit, and you tried not to flinch while he merely laughed and gripped your hand tighter.

He saved your ass and the Snow’s asses. Playing pretty little fucking wife is a small price to pay. You remind yourself when he kisses your cheek. Just pretend. Smile and pretend.

You had sold yourself to Festus in the months that Coryo…. Coriolanus was gone. When you were barely making ends meet and his cousin and grandmother weren’t making it. You had known that Tigris sometimes sold herself to people that wouldn’t really know her last name, but she hadn’t ever been able to get the primary houses due to her family's nobility.

You could.

So, you offered yourself to Creed, a classmate of Coriolanus’ and one that he had warned you to stay away from. “A viper wearing human skin.” How ironic how things turned around.

You tried not thinking about Snow at all, tried to get his face out of your mind, but every time you got close to winning against your memory, he somehow managed to pop up. Every. Single. Time.

It had been months since that initial argument the day he returned. You had been a fool who planned on confessing your love to him, planning on asking him to marry you. Then he called you a gluttonous leech, and Festus proposed a week later. It should be history.

And yet, right on cue, you spot a light blonde head of hair making his way through the crowd quickly as you and your fiancé stand quickly, the crowd of cameras dispersing at the engagement party resumes its flow.

You tried not to sneer about the sheer amount of money these people threw at everything. Just a couple months ago you had been starving, and now you can only watch as dozens of tables were set up with ludicrously decorated desserts that wouldn’t actually be eaten. “Never eat the food in front of them. Makes us look bad.” Festus has told you before your first party with all of them.

“Might I go to the restroom really quick?” You ask him, trying to move around with his arm tightly wrapped around you.

“Of course.” He smiles, giving your hip a tight squeeze before his eyebrows pinch together. “Let’s greet Snow first. I’m sure your old best friend would love to see you.”

Wish I could say the same. You bite back the remark on the tip of your tongue with a pleasant smile, allowing Festus to lead you to where your old friend was finally cutting through people. He had a grim look on his face, he always did these days, and if you didn’t know better you would assume he was upset.

“Snow.” Festus smiles, “glad you can make it. I know game keeping has been keeping your attention these days.”

Something in your stomach clenches at the words, no matter how many times people spoke of it you still could not believe that he was helping with the games.

You feel his stare in the side of your head, but you keep your eyes firmly on Festus, playing with his hair a bit as you play the role of lovestruck girl. Festus glows at this, eyes lighting up as he looks at you.

Whether or not he knows you’re using him as an excuse you can’t possibly care, he likes that you’re rubbing it in Snows face all the same.

“How could I miss this…. Joyous occasion?” Every word is clipped, and you try not to roll your eyes. “It’s wonderful that you’re family is able to take the young medic in.”

You know the underlying meaning beneath the words, snapping to glare at him. A smirk slides onto his lips as his eyes spark with excitement, it takes you a minute bro realize you had just fallen into a trap he laid out. To get you to look at him.

“Well I’m no freeloader.” You bite out. “I’ll obviously keep working in the hospital.”

Festus barks out a laugh at this, hand tightening on your hip as his other moves to hold his stomach, pure humor on his face. “Oh darling. How outrageously funny that was.”

“How was that funny?” You ask, blanching a bit.

“You’re not going to work! How would that make my family look?” Festus laughs, leaning to kiss your lips. You try to kiss back, something tightening in your throat as a sharp sting begins to form in your eyes. Do not cry. Do not cry.

“I’m going to go grab a drink. Keep our friend entertained will you?” Festus smiles, squeezing your hip once more before moving to walk away, leaving you with Coriolanus.

You risk one look to him, already seeing that he was staring right at you, and take a small sip from the Champagne in the flute as you think about how to get away. You decide on “I do hope you enjoy the party. I’m going to make my way to the ladies room.”

And for a second you think you’re brilliant, turning on your heel to walk away quickly but he is fast, taking three easy steps and cutting into your path.

“I was hoping we could talk.”

“We just did.”

“Did we?”

“What do you call that whole conversation with my fiancé if not talking?” You put on an airy smile, and fear freezes at you at the sheer anger in his gaze. Panic settles in, and you stand straighter, choosing to play offense. “Besides. You’re the one that warned me to stay away. What was it you said? ‘Or suffer the consequences’, wasn't it?”

His eyes shutter but otherwise he does a good job of playing calm, using one hand to pull imaginary lint off his jacket. “I believe so. But maybe I’ve decided I was wrong.”

“You weren’t wrong.” You snipe. “I was a freeloading wretch and now I’m not. Problem handled. We can go our separate ways and never speak again-“

“Festus was the one that paid you, wasn’t he?” His voice is low, but his eyes are screaming at you as he leans closer. “To help pay for rent. It was Festus.”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about.” You did. And he knew it, which was answer enough.

“I’m sorry you-“but you’re gone, dashing to find the bathroom.

-

You know there's many different ways that you can kill the one you love

The slowest way is never loving them enough

Do you really want to know where I was April 29th?

Do I really have to tell you how he brought me back to life?

-

The door to the Snow Mansion caught a little, letting some of the winter air in with you, your teeth chattering as you did your best to shut it. Managing to push all your body weight into the door to finally get it closed before you puffed hot air into your palms, the sack you carried heavy in your hand as you hear someone call your name.

Then he’s there, surrounding you in what little warmth he had, arms wrapped around you as you try to ease the shivers.

“Come in. We are burning some of mothers old romance novels for warmth.” He smiles, grabbing your hand and leading you to the fireplace where there were indeed pages from novels burning quickly.

“I brought this-“ you smile, holding up the bag of the goodies you managed to smuggle out of work. “It was someone’s anniversary and they had tables of food. I grabbed what I could before they threw it all out.”

A smile breaks out across his face as his cousin and grandmother both gasp and move to surround you. Before you know it you are all huddled close to the fire, eating quickly to try and ease the hunger, Coryo sitting close to you.

Once all the food is gone his grandmother retires to bed and Tigris goes to heat up water, leaving you with Coryo by the dying fire.

“I…. I always imagined small family dinners. Always wanted it for my own family, eating close together rather than a large table.” You admit, pulling your legs close to yourself. “Never did I imagine this though.”

“One day I’m going to get us out of this.” He mumbles, one hand reaching to hold onto one of your own. “And we will have that.”

There was that feeling of happiness rising in your chest as you looked at his determined face, leaning to kiss the corner of his lips softly. “I look forward to it.” And you believed he could make it happen, you truly did.

-

High infidelity

Put on your records and regret me

I bent the truth too far tonight

I was dancing around, dancing around it

-

You could learn to love him, you were sure of it. Somehow someway you would fall in love with my Festus, provide him a child that would inherit his families vast fortune and you would see to it that your kid never had to worry about starving.

You would rake yourself over coals before letting your child do any of what you had to do.

Like right now, fake moans filtering from your lips as Festus had his way with you on a random desk in a study room you did not recognize. Not that it was surprising, this family liked their secrets.

Once he was done he smiled at you, kissing you quickly as he fixed his pants and tucked in his shirt. “Fix yourself up. We have an engagement party to get back to.”

And with that he was gone from the room, leaving you to fix the skirt and sink to the floor, using the side of the large oak desk to lean on.

The sound of the door opening barely draws your attention, sighing out as you stare at the bookshelf, trying to piece your nerves back together as you always did after Festus.

“Are you alright?” The tone was a mix between your old friends comforting voice and the new Snows voice, and you tried not to roll your eyes.

“I’m fine.” You snap, your spine stiff. “Go back to the party.”

“I should be saying that to you.” He mumbles, moving closer and sliding to sit next to you. “It is your party after all.”

“Yeah? Is it?” You mumble, scooting over slightly to get away from him. He merely follows you, sliding right next to you once more.

Before you can yell at him he is holding out a cloth napkin, filled with those crème cookies that filled the tables out there. Macarons, Festus had called them. But you hadn’t had one. Rich people liked to starve.

“Come on. We both know you want one.” He smiles.

“Does it have poison?” You snipe, remembering the reason he had been sent away in the first place. He had given that Lucy girl an advantage in the games. Poison.

“No, not for you.” He smiles, like you hadn’t just completely tried to chase him off. Then he grabs one and shoves the entire thing in his mouth, making a small laugh slip from you before you bite it down, rolling your eyes. “Do you remember my 13th birthday?”

“No.” Yes.

He had stolen sandwiches from his school lunch and you had somehow managed to steal chocolate chip cookies from some party you had been working at. You ate together in the park, huddled by a tree so no one would see you, whispering all the things you wanted to see in the world.

“It was by far one of the best birthdays I had ever had.”

“One of?”

“Well my favorite birthday was the one before the war. I got so many gifts my parents made me a playroom.” He smiles.

You try not to let the words sting, what were measly cookies to a playroom. That was the life he belonged in. Luxury.

“You won’t be working then?” He asks after a moment of silence. “I always thought you liked being a medic.”

“I haven’t been an actual medic for long.” You sneer, you had only earned the honor while he was gone. Before that you simply volunteered every morning before your actual job, taking lessons whenever you could scrounge up money.

“A short lived career then.”

“What do you want me to say? My husband won’t allow me to work then I won’t work. It’s simple.”

“I would need my wife to work.” He shrugs.

“Why? You wouldn’t want a freeloader?”

“No. I would be running for president of Panem. And I believe that a medic for a wife would help my votes.” He states bluntly, eyes catching yours as your own widen.

“I’m sorry?” But he doesn’t respond, instead he holds out that damned napkin of cookies again. And you snatch one quickly, turning away the slightest bit to eat it.

“You’ll think about it?” He asks, eyes never leaving you.

“Think about it? There is nothing to think about.” You laugh, wiping sugar from the corner of your mouth before using the desk to help you stand and stepping over him.

Before you could fully escape his hands snatch your calf, pulling you down until you unceremoniously fall into his lap. “I told you to stay away from Festus. His family is not-….. he won’t give you what you want.”

“He’s paying my rent Snow. I’m just fine.”

“What happened to family dinners? Or the 6 kids running around.”

“I can have that with him.”

“Can you?” He lets you go then, knowing his words hit the mark when your face falls.

You leave the study, trying to pretend things are fine for the rest of the day, but his words cling to you like a skin of a snake.

-

High infidelity

Put on your headphones and burn my city

Your picket fence is sharp as knives

I was dancing around, dancing around it

-

You would have loved the atmosphere of District 12’s underground space, the dancing and music, laughter falling through your ears and the best of their dancing jolting down your spine with every stomp and clap.

Though he never understood your fascination with the districts back then, during the games he was beginning to understand slowly, and seeing this he could.

“Let’s go get a drink.” Sejanus laughs, pushing him to the bar as he imagines you twirling through, stomping and clapping at the right times.

It’s that night, drunk and a bit out of it that he lets the words he had been holding back for years slip. Sejanus had been grousing on and on about how he knew Snow was a good guy by the fact that his closest companion had been a young student healer rather than a Capitol clone and Snow tried not to bristle as how easy Sejanus laughed off your history.

You had worked for everything, and yet the man in front of him made it seem like you had chosen the healer life out of pity, rather than your hardwork and dedication.

Then the words slipped, “She’s a rare one and that’s why I love her.”

His friends eyes widen, and so does snow, both breathing in for a second before a wave of laughter fills them as Lucy’s voice fills the room.

-

Do you really want to know where I was April 29th?

Do I really have to chart the constellations in his eyes?

You know there's many different ways that you can kill the one you love

The slowest way is never loving them enough

-

It had taken you 10 minutes to sneak out of the Creed mansion, and another 15 to walk to Snow mansion where he had asked to meet you.

He being Coriolanus, through a telegram sent directly to you earlier in the day.

The door sticks a little, just like it used to, but the rest of the place had been professionally cleaned and you kept to the front rug in the entrance so as to not drag mud in.

“What are you doing?” He asks, coming around the corner to look at you in the entrance. “I’m in here, let’s go.”

He doesn’t wait to see your panic at the clean floors, so you rush to take off your shoes before tiptoeing to the main sitting room he was in.

“You said it was urgent.” You mumble, looking around at all the papers strewn about. Some designs of outfits and dresses, some of creatures and set ups. “What is all this?”

“This, my dear, is the 11th annual hunger games.” He smiles, and you try not to shudder at how easy he says dear.

“Oh I see, you’ll be making the tributes wear extravagant gowns in the arena then?” You hold up a sketch of what looks to be an evening gown designed for district 3.

“Tigris will be styling and dressing them before the games now.” He explains, moving closer to you. “For if they wish to be performers then we shall let them. Give them all a fighting chance.”

“Like Lucy?”

He doesn’t answer, instead moving to pick up another sketch. “And now, once they are in the arena they will all wear the same uniform.”

“They won’t die in their own clothes?”

“They’ll die at the Capitol wills it.” He sneers, taking a second to regain his composure. “But this isn’t why I have brought you here today.”

“Okay….” He grabs your hand, pulling you to the desk and showing you plans and sketches. “I need your medical advice.”

“For?”

“For a poisonous sea creature.” You rear back at that, but he is quick to snatch your hand. “I just need to know how to prolong the death.”

“I’m not helping-“

“Please. I need you.” He admits, his hand still on you. “I always need you.”

“Coryo-“ it’s the first time you’ve called him that in forever, and he can’t help but rush to you, pressing his lips to yours quickly.

You kiss back, although your common sense is screaming at you to stop. And soon enough the kiss is deepening, and he’s shoving all the documents off the table to place you upon it, making quick work of stripping you down while trying to keep his lips to you at all times.

And you were ashamed to admit you found pleasure for the first time that night, allowing him to pull that pleasure from you over and over and over.

-

High infidelity

Put on your records and regret meeting me

I bent the truth too far tonight

I was dancing around, dancing around it

-

“He’s a mad man….” Festus mumbles, hand clenched on your knee. “A mad genius but a madman.”

He was right of course, you could do nothing but blink as the games unfolded before you, surrounded by his peers and coworkers as they all cheered and booed at the tributes.

You couldn’t pay attention, the gore beginning to get to you as well as the fact that Coryo kept glaring over at you and Festus from his podium in the center, eyes narrowing as a sneer coated his mouth.

You hated these moments, when you were anxious about the affair and when Festus was in the same room with the two of you. Don’t do anything stupid, you silently plead.

But when has Coryo ever played stupid? No. Everything he did was smart, three moves ahead.

“How about a wager?” He smiles to his friends, and you bite your lip. That scheming look not good.

“Yeah?” Festus smiles. “My moneys on district 2. Girl.”

Vivi, was her name. She had 2 sisters at home and was playing viciously. She would not win though, she had been bitten by a snake with slow killing venom, you would know since you helped Coryo make it.

“No. Money is far too boring.” Coryo smiles, ever the Capitol player. “How about we wager…… the healer.”

Festus freezes, hand tightening on your thigh in a searing grip that you know has Coryo seething under his calm exterior, those blue eyes lighting with a challenge. He hated when Festus was rough, which was more often than not.

Coryo preferred to be…. Rough in the sheets and gentle every other moment.

“You want my fiancé? Don’t you have whores for that?” Festus laughs, but there is no humor behind it.

“I don’t want a whore. I want a wife.” Coryo smiles, holding out his hand. “District 4, Mags.”

People begin whispering and smiling at the challenge, and you realize why Coryo had been talking too loud then, because Festus would look weak to back away now.

Festus risks a look to you, narrowing on your shocked look before taking Coryos hand. When the blonde walks away your fiancé leans in, “we will be discussing this later.”

After he won, if he won. He would make your life hell.

-

High infidelity

Put on your headphones and burn my city

Your picket fence is sharp as knives

I was dancing around, dancing around it

-

“Your mood swings make my head spin,” you admit, laying on the mattress lazily as Coryo sits leaning on the headboard, tracing his finger across your exposed back. “One moment you’re rutting into me like you hate me, the next your murmuring love sonnets.”

“Do the Creeds actually have money?” He murmurs, fingers dancing across your ribs. “Or are they pretending just as I had been for awhile?”

“They have money, loads and loads of it. So much that they burnt some of it for fun the other day to see how long it took to burn.” You mumble, keeping your eyes closed.

“Then why do you still look starving?” He asks, moving closer to curl around you.

“Because they only eat one meal a day, and it’s more of….. well they don’t like gluttonous people.”

“Surviving is gluttonous?”

“The rich have never made sense.” You admonish. “They starve themselves to prove they can, no sugar or dairy. No this or that. They don’t know hunger like we did.”

“I thought you were marrying him to stop that hunger.” He mutters, a bit of anger in it.

“I also have a roof over my head and warmth. There is more to it.” You sigh, not wanting this to be another argument as it was every week. “There’s nothing we can do Coryo. I get married after the games.”

“They talk about you like you’re a pet.”

“To them I am.”

-

Oh, there's many different ways that you can kill the one you love

And it's never enough, it's never enough

-

“So this is what he does now?” Festus sneers, whipping his tie off as he storms into his room, dragging you in with him.

The games would last another night it seemed, and Snow sent everyone out as he was getting ready for the big finish.

“He is making it all one big game. Placing wagers and gambling. It’s bullshit!” You try not to roll your eyes at his outburst since he had been all about it before Coryo called him out.

But apparently you still somehow rolled your eyes and his face falls into pure rage as he begins charging for you. Fear coats your system as his hand latches around your neck, cutting off oxygen.

Before it could get worse there is a knock on the door.

“YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS!” His little sister calls, turning on his screen to reveal the games, where many of the players are fighting a very large creature in the body of water.

“What is that?” Festus gasps.

“A sea monster.” You breathe out, watching with a small amount of excitement mixed with disgust as Mags plunges her spear into its eye.

-

Lock broken, slur spoken

Wound open, game token

I didn't know you were keeping count

Rain soaking, blind hoping

You said I was freeloading

I didn't know you were keeping count

But oh, you were keeping count

-

You married him on April 29th, a year later he ran for president and to no one's surprise he won.

You became First Lady of panem. And would of course bear tons of children.

He kept his promise, eating close together every night, making sure all his kids were well fed and never knew the hunger you both did. And when your youngest was blasted in the tabloids for her ‘pudginess’ Coryo made sure to send the writer and his family to District 7 and the very next year the oldest daughter of the family was chosen in the reaping.

You lived in constant disgust and amazement, the battle never ending.

You helped him come up with ideas for creatures and implemented healing and medicine into the games to at least give some of those kids a fighting chance.

“Remember when I warned you to stay away?” He asks one night, watching you from his spot on the bed as you get air at the window.

“Quite vividly.” You laugh, breathing in the night scent in his shirt as he lay naked save for a sheet. “Said I was a freeloader.”

“I was trying to push you away.”

“Gathered that.” You nod, watching him extend a hand before shuffling across the floor and climbing across the bed until you reach his hands where he pulled you in for a warm kiss.

“You are a freeloader.” He teases, his lips still against yours. “You owe me so much.”

“Oh do I?” You laugh.

“Yeah! You owe me a can of beans, never got paid back for that.” He smiles and you can’t help but laugh.

“I’ll go get the dirtiest can of beans, expired, and it will be just like old times.”

Before he can say anything else you are pushing to kiss him again, falling into his warmth with a hum and letting him drag you under the sheet.

(Yeah. It stayed in the draft because I never quite liked how the story worked….. something always seemed off. I rewrote this 10 times back then, but since I am releasing my old drafts this baby is out now. )

[prettygoododds]

Thank you for the tags @emeryhall @artsyunderstudy @wellbelesbian @talentpiper11 and @noblecorgi

I haven’t typed out too many words but my brain is definitely constantly thinking about all of the google docs I have open in my computer 24/7. Because of this, I keep a notebook on me at all times to make little scribbles as I think of them.

Instead of some very formal typed out words, I thought I’d share the scribbles that may or may not make it into Picket Fence Is Sharp As Knives. You’re welcome for my very hurried, no one else will read this but me, handwriting.

Tags: @ic3-que3n @dohrnaira @thewholelemon @facewithoutheart @imagineacoolusername @shemakesmeforget @ivelovedhimthroughworse @rimeswithpurple @aristocratic-otter @cutestkilla @blackberrysummerblog @nausikaaa @supercutedinosaurs @nightimedreamersworld @valeffelees @iamamythologicalcreature @shrekgogurt @ileadacharmedlife @martsonmars @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @hushed-chorus @roomwithanopenfire @youarenevertooold @bookish-bogwitch

[reputayswift]

taylor, the anon reminds me your iconic gilmore girls edits as taylor albums… so, i gotta ask, who’s midnights?

Okay so I’m glad Midnights wasn’t out when I made that edit bc this is a VERY hard question, especially because I’ve already used up essentially all of the main characters…who are we left with: Kirk? Taylor? Miss Patty? Babette?? I saw this tag the other day and it pains me. It really does because I don’t want to acknowledge this character but he probably gives us the most to work with 😔 (no offense to the person who tagged it ofc you made some points!!! <3)

Lavender Haze: the only kind of girl HE sees IS a one-night or a wife!

Anti-Hero: he’s the problem. it’s him. I AM tired of his scheming! “Taylor, you’ll be fine” that’s him giving Taylor the weekly Doose’s profit report. him ghosting is unrealistic though, if there’s one thing that boy is going to do it’s fill an answering machine.

Midnight Rain: he wanted a bride, she was making her own name! and he does eventually get the picture-perfect, shiny family. sunshine though????…..🤨

Vigilante Shit: no more dressing like 50s housewives for him. “picture me thick as thieves with your ex-wife,” I’d like to see it!!

Bejeweled: Lindsay anthem, maybe I’d give this album to her 🤔 “familiarity breeds contempt, don’t put me in the basement when I want the penthouse of your heart” is very Dean lashing out at Lindsay when he’s secretly seeing Rory, all while she’s trying to cook the perfect dinner for him

Mastermind: Dean stalking watching Rory while she reads her books, trying to win her back from Jess under the guise of just wanting to be her friend

The Great War: “cursed you as I sleep-talked” > him saying Rory’s name while he’s passed out after his bachelor party, another Lindsay anthem “maybe it was egos swinging, maybe it was her”

High Infidelity: can be Lindsay x Dean vs Rory x Dean or Rory x Dean vs Rory x Jess, “your picket fence is sharp as knives,” “I bent the truth too far tonight I was dancing around it” (literally dance marathon ep), “there’s many different ways that you can kill the one you love, the slowest way is never loving them enough,” “storm coming, good husband, bad omen, dragged my feet right down the aisle, at the house lonely, good money I’d pay if you’d just know me, seemed like the right thing at the time,” “do I really have to tell you how he brought me back to life?”

Glitch: he’s a dude that gives nothing

Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve: I see this one get suggested a lot and I get the idea (Rory sleeping with Dean being a kind of turning point for her character) but I think an age-gap is kind of essential to that dynamic

[randomestfandoms-ocs]

Taylor Swift Edits ✤ Ivy Knight x James Bishop (ft. Oliver Queen)

Midnights ✤ High Infidelity: Your picket fence is sharp as knives, I was dancing around it

Tag List: want to be added?

Ivy Tag: @darknightfrombeyond

[clonethemidwife]

1. “With You” by Josh Groban

With you I have everything I’ve ever wanted, simple and true.

2. “Tell Me True” by Sarah Jarosz

Do you dream of me like I dream of you, tell me darling, please tell me true.

3. “So Good” by Halsey

Maria calls me and she says she’s getting married. She asks me if there’s any extra weight I carry and do I think about the one that got away? I know his name. I think about him every day.

4. “The Great War” by Taylor Swift

My hand was the one you reached for all throughout the Great War.

5. “High Infidelity”

Put on your headphones and burn my city. Your picket fence is sharp as knives I was dancing around dancing around

Tagging:

@snoopctm @mg-bsl381 @ctmwidower @anamarialujan @miss-ute

Tagged by @didim-dol !! 5 songs I’ve been listening to recently and 5 tags!

1. "Revolution" by Bishop Briggs:

My pain is my armor. I'm bulletproof. So come take a shot. Yeah, I dare you to."

2. "If You're There" by Jess Pillay:

The mask is on, the veil's in place, time to pretend. I'm holding on. I'll try to smile away the pain, while I slowly go insane

3. "Wolves" by Jensen McRae

Thank God women learn to whisper, but I crave a megaphone

4. "Uphill Battle" by Rozzi

I'm not the girl that you thought you were getting. I'm way more complex, yeah I got them sharp edges. I'm solid as ice, oh. But I break all the time.

5. "Anti-Hero" by Taylor Swift

Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby, and I'm a monster on the hill: too big to hang out, slowly lurching toward your favorite city; pierced through the heart, but never killed.

Tagging: @romeorevoarchive, @janiedean, @clonethemidwife, @rogueimperator, and @austennerdita2533

[creativeashproductions]

What's a Knife Between Onscreen Family // Charlie Gillespie

Summary: Filming an emotionally wrought scene on the set of your current role as a regular goes very wrong very fast. Expecting the scene to be the most taxing of the day you find yourself in the ER getting a transfusion. It’s all fun and games until someone’s holding a sharp knife incorrectly, guess it’s just something in common with co-star Jared Padalecki.

Warnings: Swearing, blood, fear, injuries, hospital, needles, angst, and fluff

Words: 3.5k (including lyrics)

A/N: I watched a part of a panel from a Supernatural con and found it hilarious that Jensen accidently stabbed Jared. So I had to write that for a Charlie Gillespie fic. Link to the video talking about the stabbing is right below this message.

Jensen Ackles Accidentally Stabbed Jared Padalecki during filming From 1:00-6:00

TO BE TAGGED SEND AN INBOX PLEASE!

Masterlist

It had to be one of the most emotionally taxing scenes in your entire career as an actress on a physically demanding show. The scene had been incredibly mentally draining the daughter of a Winchester. It had been once season recurring, one series regular and now filming the third season. As the teenage Winchester, it threw a wrench in all the plans and the reckless character gave no shits.

“Okay, this is our last scene for the day!” Robert Singer, the director of his episode, called out from off stage. Standing at the top of the stairs in the Bunker, you jumped in close with a scrunched nose at the squishy sound.

Over the railing, both Jared and Jensen nodded their support from the ground level with concerned expressions. Ever since you joined the cast in season 13, they had become fathers to you. The sight of you drenched in stage blood was enough to churn their stomachs.

“I gave you the barebones of the scene so work with it. Briar’s traumatized after fighting for her life and has been gone for a while.” Robert explained, “Cas couldn’t find her. I want this to be a tribute like Dean in season 10 episode 14: The Executioner’s Song.”

Taking a deep breath in your emotions channelled into a hurricane in your chest, clenching your fingers on the knife.

“Action!”

Pacing the floor plan of the Bunker is two brothers bonded by sorrow, pain, sacrifice and love. Each throwing out locations on where Briar could be, Jack and Cas had been little help. Sam’s heart clenched tight bypassing images straight to torture. The kind of torture he had endured over the years.

Dean’s mouth opened to suggest another place when the Bunker door creaked open. The red converse appeared before the soggy jeans as the teen slowly made her way down the steps. Briar Winchester shook like a leaf staring off in the distance as the blood congealed on her face and hands.

“Briar.” Dean slowly spoke, moving towards the girl. His green eyes lit up in fury as the seventeen-year-old flinched back. Dean’s hand gently took the stained knife from the young girl.

“I-I didn’t mean to do it.” The meek voice appeared so unlike the usual confidence Briar talked with. In exhaustion, Briar’s knees collapsed, sending the teen right into Dean’s arms.

The stoic man gripped the youngest Winchester as his waist bearing her weight against his while Sam circled to be behind Dean. The choked sob echoed by another escaped the family huddle; one from Briar and the other from Dean.

“Dad.” Briar choked clenching her arms around the green-eyed adult’s shoulders, craving the safety of her father.

Ever since Dean could remember he had had a strict rule of always practising safe sex, he didn’t want a kid. Not in a world that had it out for Winchesters and not one where he might hold his child’s dead body in his arms. That all changed when Cas delivered Dean to a county jail where Briar was held just for a minor assault charge on a wealthy bully.

Dean never let himself want a future with the picket fence and the dog in the backyard but when Briar changed that. Dean would do anything for his family no matter the cost. Example: Selling his soul for Sam.

“Sh.” Dean spoke kissing the crown of her hair he savoured having his child safe in his arms, “I’ll help you to the bathroom to get cleaned up. We’ll heat some soup and toast.”

On autopilot, Dean helped Briar down the hall to the bathroom where she would freshen up and later burn the unsalvageable clothing. As Dean returned to Sam’s side, Castiel came with a sombre expression and an explanation.

“Dean. Sam.” Cas greeted them, flicking his blue gaze between the two brothers. The faint sound of the shower only picked up by the trained heightened sense of hearing from years of watching over their backs.

“Cas what the hell happened?” Dean demanded, “Why the hell is my little girl bruised and coated in blood?”

END FILMING SCENE

“Cut!” Robert called out to the large room with a big smile on his face, “I’ll watch it back. See if we need more takes.”

Jared and Jensen wiped the tears that fell from their cheeks just thinking on how wrought that scene felt. As fathers seeing a young adult in such a state severely agonized them. The duo jogged to see your back against the cold wall—a pinched expression marring your young face.

“How are you feeling after that?” Jensen asked, coming closer to squeeze your shoulders unfazed by the sticky fake blood. It was already all over his clothes from hugging you in character.

“You shouldn’t be allowed to have sharp objects.” You spoke glancing down at your knee that had been punctured by the knife. The dark jeans soaked in stage blood now concealed the real blood.

 “Jensen, did you really stab another person.” Jared deadpanned his best friend referencing back a few years. Jared shoved one hand through his hair, receiving a nasty glare from the hairstylist on call.

The glare on Jensen’s face blistered the taller actor, “I didn’t stab you. You walked into the knife.”

The two bickered as they guided you back to the main stage where Robert had reached a final verdict. He had watched the replay twice along with his crew finding the raw emotion to be perfect. The little detail the three had added was well played. Dean unexpectedly consoling his daughter in tears; no threats to kill or push her to tell him what happened. The first time Briar referring to Dean as her father. Lastly, Sam’s unsure actions in consoling a young girl sucked into life like he was in his youth.

“We got a one-take winner!” Robert called out sending the entire crowd into loud applause and cheers. Jared taking most of your weight as you hobbled to the costume trailer.

The lovely costume designers helped remove the sticky shirt, jewellery and the red converse that had once been white. Only the jeans remained on your body to not mess with the wound. As much as you’d love to shower the blood off, it was near impossible, moving your knee stung and it was best to avoid aggravating it.

“Someone needs to ban Jensen from knives. Just wait till his wife finds out about this, she adores Y/N.” Martha chuckled from her sketches she designed on her breaks for a future in fashion design. Often in your free time, you would be her guinea pig with her designs using refurbished material.

Normally the banter would continue but not when your leg was bleeding, and Jared was taking you to the ER. To make time faster, Jared had scooped you into his arms to the black car their driver waited in.

“Towels are in place. Sorry, you got hurt, Kid.” Clif spoke, opening the door to the backseat where Jensen sat patiently. Unlike usual, he had seated himself in the front so you could stretch in the back.

A weak chuckle met air in the packed car from the blood loss that wasn’t overly bad but enough that Jared took the towel. His pressure on the wound caused a yelp that had Jensen flinching in guilt.

“The knife must have been sharp to cut a mouse in half,” Clif muttered turning towards the hospital close to set. Coincidently the drive took you passed the set your boyfriend currently filmed at.

“Might as well call me butter.” You retorted wincing at the throbbing pain, “You aren’t allowed any more sharp objects, Mr. Ackles.”

“Danneel already threatened to hide all the knives in the house.” The on-screen father laughed as the tension decreased in the small car. Despite the dizziness, it didn’t hide the guilt in Jensen’s green eyes.

Time flew by as you found yourself in a bed for observation and pictures for the knee. It came as a shock when the doctor requested one blood transfusion for the blood loss. The hope of being in and out had evaporated like water beads on a blistering summer day.

Julie and the Phantoms Set

Charlie adored his life as an actor where he was free to visit places, he might not have had the opportunity to do. He made friends with everyone he spoke to and even met the love of his life as an actor as well.

That being said today had been the longest one with a full schedule and barely time for lunch or snacks. Even a nap was unachievable, and he desperately wanted one for being awake for hours by now.

“Charlie! Did you know you’ve got missed calls?” Jeremy inquired, staring at the phone that went black once more. Charlie’s eyebrows came together at the mention. His family had the rough outline of times he would be unavailable to talk.

Stepping back from the craft table’s supper options, he lifted the phone from the table, bringing it to life. His lock screen showing multiple missed calls and voicemails from you, his family and two unknown numbers.

His jaw dropped further when Meghan called for the first time out of the group, “Megs?”

“Finally! Where have you been?” Meghan demanded pacing in the studio she had been using when she got the call. The pretty and successful young woman had gotten terrified at learning about Y/N.

“Filming? It’s the longest day of filming the show. It’s on the family schedule.” Charlie spoke, settling into one of the empty tables. His eyes watching the people entering and exiting the tent set up for food.

“Jesus. Mom called me when you didn’t pick up. Y/N’s in the hospital.” Meghan revealed sending the Canadian actor into a stiff posture. His hazel eyes blow wide and panic flooding his entire system.

“What?!” Charlie didn’t mean to shout nor turn paler than a piece of white paper, but it happened. The volume contracting looks from everyone in the vicinity. Owen even dropped the donut back in the box by the volume.

“She got stabbed with a knife. I sent the address earlier, and I haven’t gotten a lot of info.” Meghan told her older brother, “I know she’s getting a blood transfusion, but nothing else was released.”

Charlie couldn’t tell you what happened between Meghan telling him and reaching the hospital frantically. Nor could he figure out how Owen was in the back of the Uber with him guiding him through exercises; all thanks to Owen’s therapist for his anxiety.

His sneakers squeaked on the polished white floor in his mission to the receptionist transferring information from a chart to digital. Charlie’s painting brought him attention from the kind nurse acknowledging his presence.

“Just let me finish this one sentence.” The nurse hummed saving the information before turning their full attention to the frazzled male, “How can I help you?”

“What room is Y/N Y/L/N in? She was stabbed and needed a transfusion.” Charlie demanded deflating as Owen placed a hand on his shoulder. The Canadian’s eyes bright with panic and a deep fear

The nurse’s eyes softened, “I can’t give out information on patients unless your immediate family members.”

“I’m here-“

“Husband! He’s her husband, they eloped so she hasn’t changed her last name or updated her information.” Owen blurted out, rubbing the pad of his index finger on the black jeans he had worn for his role. The two hadn’t even bothered changing into their street clothing.

The nurse nodded their head-turning back to the computer to enter the name for the patient for the information. It took seconds before the nurse wrote on the miscellaneous sticky note of the ward and room number.

“My name is Riley. If you need any help, you can come back here, and I’ll do my best to give you answers.” Nurse Riley informed the duo with a kind smile nodding in the direction of your hospital room.

Owen’s long legs ate up the distance Charlie made in his sprint to the stairwell, “Shouldn’t we take the elevator?”

“My girlfriend is in a hospital bed. I can’t wait for an elevator.” Charlie rebuked the suggestion on the second flight. Owen’s sigh was the last sound made as the duo slammed into the door to the floor level.

Charlie and Owen appeared in the doorway of your hospital room panting from the exertion meeting the gaze of two actors. Charlie’s heart stuttered at the sight of the high volume of blood in your clothing and your hair.

The sharp gasp brought your attention to the shaking Canadian actor solely focused on scanning for wounds. His eyes barely staying on the two adult males you had been starring with for a few years. Schedule conflicts often led to no introduction to each other’s co-stars.

“What the hell?” Charlie choked stumbling to the chair beside your hospital bed next to the pole holding a blood bag, “Did you get mugged? Are you okay?”

“Char, take a breath, man.” Owen’s blue eyes shadowed with the worry as Charlie’s breathing shuddered. Owen could barely look at you covered in blood.

“Whoa! Charlie. I’m fine. This is stage blood. We had an intense scene, and there was a minor accident.” Your voice soothed the man gently taking Charlie’s hand to comfort him, “I lost a bit of blood. The doctor decided to give me a blood transfusion to bring my levels back up a bit before stitching it up.”

“How do you get stabbed accidently?” Owen questioned glancing at the two men standing silently in the corner. Due to contracts on the Supernatural set details of scenes and storylines was off-limits.

“Well, during filming, I took a knife from her, and she walked into the blade?” Jensen trailed off, shoving his elbow into Jared’s side at the scoff. It happened every time it was brought up.

“I-“Charlie blinked, shaking his head as he took a deep sigh in pushing that to the back burner to focus solely on you. His hand rubbed his face while he settled on squeezing your one hand in both of his.

The touch of your skin grounding him back to earth with the shattering visions of walking into the world without you. It would be both ways, the second his calloused warm skin brushed your hands; it was like the pain faded. Only a sense of content settled in your weary bones.

“Okay Miss Y/L/N.” Dr. Clancy walked into the room only halting to grab a pair of medical gloves, “I see your entourage grew. I’m Doctor Jim Clancy, and you must be Miss Y/L/N’s husband.”

Three pairs of eyes widened at the doctor’s words aimed towards the brunette actor turning a blushing mess. The words mouthed by Charlie to go with it gave barely any insight, but you did it. The moment you had a free minute with Charlie, you would interrogate him in the new title you had.

“Yeah, my husband.” You spoke flicking an expression to Jensen and Jared that caught on from the years together. They had taken you under their wing on your first day on set, and then you became family with their immediate family.

“I can confirm that my initial observation is that the wound doesn’t have anything that shouldn’t be in there. We stopped the bleeding, the x-ray came clean, we’ll set you up with IV fluid, and tetanus shot to be safe.”

“Nurse Gellar here will cut the rest of the jeans off, get you in a gown for a few hours of observation. Just a precaution for blood transfusions. We’ll have some scrubs you can wear when you can leave.” Dr. Clancy motioned to the tall redhead with a quiet demeanour.

Charlie’s lips lingered on your temple at the fear that flared in your expressive eyes, he would give anything to take your place. He softly sang your couple song as a whimper fell from your lips as the jean tugged the dried blood from the wound. The painful pressure felt as you guessed it had started to bleed again, the feel of liquid rolling down your skin, confirming it.

“I’ll sing anything.” Charlie whispered going through his mental catalogue of songs on your shared playlist, “Oh!”

I’m booking myself a one-way flight

 I gotta see the color in your eyes

 And telling myself I’m gonna be alright

 Without you baby is a waste of time

The tears falling no longer came from the pain but the sheer amount of love you had for the man there. Eyes glittering with pure adoration as his voice came off absolutely heart-melting. So, lost in each other neither of you noticed Owen had been filming from the moment Charlie had said ‘oh’.

Yeah, our first date, girl, the seasons changed

 It got washed away in a summer rain

 You can’t undo a fall like this

 ’Cause love don’t know what distance is

 Yeah, I know it’s crazy

Charlie’s hand slowly slid up your arms to cup your tear-streaked tacky cheeks in his warm grip. The hospital faded as it became just you and Charlie. Completely oblivious at the audience in the room.

“He loves her,” Jensen whispered to Jared out of the camera frame that the blonde-haired kid’s phone. It was such a pure moment it felt disrespectful to see this exchange but also honoured to see it firsthand.

“I’ve only seen the look in your eyes for Danneel,” Jared replied, cupping his hands over his face listening to the near inaudible wet chuckle you gave.

“As I have between you and Gen. They have the real kind of love.” 

But I don’t want “good”, and I don’t want “good enough.”

 I want “can’t sleep, can’t breathe without your love”

 Front porch and one more kiss, it doesn’t make sense to anybody else

“Charlie.” You sobbed at the best part of your life serenading you in such a romantic moment at the odd setting—his hazel gaze greener in what would come to be a very dear memory to reminisce about.

The calloused thumb caressing your cheek wiping a teardrop away he continued to see as the doctor finished suturing the wound. 

Nothing mattered other than the couple currently in a bubble.

Who cares if you’re all I think about,

 I’ve searched the world and I know now,

 It ain’t right if you ain’t lost your mind.

 Yeah, I don’t want easy, I want crazy

 Are you with me baby? Let’s be crazy

Charlie’s voice faded with the rest of the song bringing you back to reality with the nurse cleaning up around the wound. That’s how the rest of the day went on waiting for the blood transfusion and IV fluids to finish. You stuffed the tetanus shot while Charlie sang between different genres.

“Thank you.” You softly spoke with Charlie being the only one left in the room with you.

Owen had headed back to their set to finish a scene while giving the updates on you while Jared and Jensen grabbed food. J2 had been very clear they would get Martha to grab some clothing for when they came back. Jensen was determined to deliver you to your home as the first action to make it up to you.

“For what?” Charlie questioned as your index and thumb picked at the cuticles of the opposite hand. Your eyes were hidden from your boyfriend’s gaze.

“For dropping everything to be here.” The words were quiet in the room only filled with breathing and the heart machine you had to be hooked up to.

“My girl-“

“Don’t you mean wife?” You teased brushing a lock of his hair from his forehead taking in the man you had the honor of loving. Of waking up next to in the apartment, you’d been renting ever since you landed the role on Supernatural; overtime Charlie’s things had just accumulated there.

“It was the only way they’d let me in.” Charlie spoke sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, “It’s a little early to call you, but I’m excited to make you my last girlfriend and then my only wife.”

The chuckle fell from your lips, “So, you want to marry me?”

“In front of all our family and friends. Tucked away from the media to celebrate the love we have for each other.” Charlie spoke, “There’s no one else I’d like by my side for the rest of my life.”

A new flood of tears welled at the sincerity in his voice and the warmth laden in his eyes of kaleidoscope colours. Sometimes, depending on his emotion or his clothing, his eyes would be greener, or when he was happy, they had a blue tinge in the green in sadness or your favourite; brown with the swirls of green.

“How did I get so lucky to have the absolute honour to fall in love with you?” Your words created a swell of emotion in the Canadian’s heart.

“The same way whatever deities there are took pity on a boy from Dieppe by bringing him an angel.” Charlie words preceded the kiss on your lips with a grin as you chased his lips after. With one last peck, he leaned back with a fond expression.

“Seriously how do you get stabbed accidently?” Charlie chortled with that gorgeous smile lighting up the room more than the white lights.

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[clatoera]

Is Picket Fences going to be PG-13? 😏

I feel like it’s already M bc of some of the themes of arwbfb that will carry over? You know like the abuse of the victors and a lot of like allusion to sex but mainly the heavy themes of violence!

I think that makes sense right? Like the themes that carry over!

[clatoera]

Picket Fence is Sharp as Knives Chapter 11: When You Can't Sleep at Night, You'll Hear My Stolen Lullaby

Heeeey besties. It has been more than a minute. I work eighty hours a week. Please take pity on me. If you are still here, still reading, wow I love you and I thank you deeply.

This chapter doesn't have a strong plot, it is just about my favorite things. Mamas and their babies.

A huge shoutout to @districtonekisses who has had conversations about explicitly stuff in this fic with me again and again, I love you and owe you cashbaria content soon I promise.

As always @kentwells my beloved, has been keeping my clato thoughts FED in my DMs to keep me moving through this shitty work schedule I have.

@bodyelectric77 you just have to get tagged at this point im so sorry.

Anyway!

Title from T-swift My tears ricochet

masterpost

AO3

He does not fit in the space from her knees to her hips anymore. His body can no longer fit comfortably resting on the short length of her thighs, where she could prop up her knees and take the time to memorize the details of her son in the middle of the night. Really, he never fit there to begin with. His legs would be scrunched up, and if he extended them he gave her an impressively strong kick for such a little person.  

Now, though, months and months into his life, Clove could not even pretend that he still fit in her lap.

Her arms, though, oh her arms were another story entirely. 

It was all part of her carefully crafted nightly facade, one she had been orchestrating for the last six months, for the entire duration of her time as a mother. 

It went the same way every night. Cato would hand her the baby in his little hooded bath towel, all wet eyelashes and big blue eyes staring at her as his little baby hands just reached for her almost as quickly as she’d reach back for him. She’d absolutely insist she was just going to get him to sleep, then she’d be back to bed. Yet, every single night she’d end up padding across the short distance from his room to their own with him firmly asleep in her arms. She always insists that it is just simpler if he is with them, because really, where in the whole world could he be safer than between the people who brought him into it.  Cato always knew his part too, when he’d wordlessly just take the baby back from her so she could get into bed. That is exactly where his son would sleep, right there on his chest and in his arms, until hours into the night when the first slight noise he made had Clove pulling him over into her arms. They’d wordlessly, barely even consciously, pass him back and forth throughout the entire duration of the night. Neither mention it. Neither question it. It is their unspoken, unquestioned agreement. 

(Neither want to admit just how scared they are at the thought of him being anywhere but between them)

This is part two of that routine, where Clove and her son sit curled up in the corner of his bedroom, her knees tucked under her as she rocks with him in the oversized (for her, at least) recliner. She’s got him in the crook of her left arm, though her right hand comes around to brush her fingers over his still damp blonde hair on his head, her thumb coming to caress his full little cheek. They share the same fleecy blue blanket that she wraps around her own shoulders and covers her arms in, so that he too is protected from any sting of his first District Two winter that bites outside the window. 

Not that there was any real risk of feeling a winter sting; from the blanket to his mother’s arms to the little blue sleeper the color of his eyes to the well heated house that his father endures for the sake of his mother- he was never going to be cold. 

Cold he is not. Awake, however, he is. 

“You gotta go to sleep, sweetheart, come on..” Clove whispers, though there's a softness in her voice that is reserved for this little boy and this little boy alone.  “You had such a busy day, you have to be sleepy.” 

Busy is a bold descriptor, but he did have an exciting day for a six month old. The first real layer of snow had finally covered the District last night, an uncharacteristically late start in February. Cato had been nothing short of insistent that he got to take the baby out today. Even Clove, who watched from the warmth of the kitchen window, couldn’t look away from the identical smiles of her boys and the sweet baby giggles coming from her son. There was something about the way Cato dipped this baby down into the ground to toe at the snow, and the way he pulled his little feet up in delighted response, that made Clove almost want to brave the cold for them, too. 

Still, the day of discovery did not seem to make a dent in the energy level of Atlas Hadley, who was contently playing with the thin strap of Clove’s shirt, an entire little fist wrapped around the fabric. She shifts, just a little, so that he is less facing into her and more looking up at the rest of the room. She catches one of his hands, and brings it up to her lips to kiss his closed fist, which earns her the biggest, widest smile from the blond boy in her arms. 

And God, when he looks at her with the biggest, widest blue eyes in the world, as if she herself hung the stars in the sky? The only thing she can wonder is how the fuck she deserves him. 

She finds herself humming to him often, and now is no exception. She never full on sings, and she never will, but there's something just..instinctual about how simply it falls from her. She isn’t even sure where she learned it. Normally it works, too. A few minutes of humming and rocking in this chair and he was out, usually with his little cheek pressed flush against her skin. 

It’s always the same song, too, oddly enough. It just flows. She isn’t even sure where she heard it or picked it up from– probably Glimmer– but it does the job. 

Most nights, at least. 

Now, though, she’s still got those sky colored eyes just absolutely staring up at her, like something is so captivating he can’t bear to close his eyes and miss a moment.

“Whatcha looking at? Do you see the snow?” Clove twists her neck to look backwards, trying to glance over her shoulder out the window to see what could possibly be so enticing to her baby. It’s just a dark sky, not even moonlight within frame to have him so entranced.

 When she’s glancing out, beyond what her baby could see, she can see the thick blanket of snow draped over the trees and landscape. It’s involuntary, the chill that goes through her, when she sees the eerie stillness of snow in the darkness. 

She doesn’t mean to stretch out her fingers, rolling them out as if she is trying to keep them mobile and warm. She can’t help but do her best to wrap her little hands around her son, somehow managing to pull him closer as if she herself will be the final defense between him and an icy, frozen arena. 

It’s been what? Five..Six..Seven years since her games? Nearly a decade and that biting cold feeling just cannot leave her. 

“There’s no snow falling, what do you see, my love?” Clove tries again, this time shifting him in her arms so that his head is resting on her chest rather than her arms, hoping to distract him from whatever was keeping him so alert. 

Still, Atlas twists his little face so that he can still see hers, blinking up at her with the same lovey expression as before. She makes a confused face at him, eyebrows pinching together,  but just wraps her arms tighter, holding them both deeper in the warm embrace of their blanket. 

“I can’t blame him, all he wants to see is you.” Cato points out from where he now rests in the doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed over the expanse of his bare chest. “I wouldn’t want to go to sleep either, if my other option was looking at you.” 

“And what are you staring at now, Cato?” Clove teases, letting one hand come to the back of her son’s head and strum rhythmic little circles over his hair. “You know you’re going to distract him..”

“Don’t mind me, I’m just admiring my work is all.” Cato grins, raking his eyes over Clove in the corner of the room, so effortlessly curled up around their only child. 

Clove, who was once a feral little girl with knives hidden in her socks, now just so delightfully different while maintaining everything that made him love her. 

“...your work? You’re admiring your work?” Clove raises a dark eyebrow, though her expression twists into something toeing the line between annoyance and adoration, an expression Cato knows all too well. 

“Hell yeah this is my work.” Cato gestures to the two of them with one hand and the most smug smile on his pretty face. “I did  make all of this happen so…my work.”

“You’re the worst sometimes,” Clove rolls her eyes, but doesn’t stop the rhythmic rocking of her son in her arms. “It’s our work, thank you very much.”

“Some of our best, honestly.” He agrees, but uses the arm that was reaching out to them to gesture back towards himself. “C’mere. I’m lonely across the hall.”

“He isn’t asleep yet..” She sighs, shaking her head lightly. “He’s got a staring problem like his dad.”

“Can’t blame the kid.” He holds out his other arm as he crosses the distance between them. “Hold on to him.”

“What are you-”

He slips one arm under her legs and the other behind her shoulders, “Just hold him. We’re going to bed.” Cato instructs, before he’s got her scooped up in his arms as if she weighed no more than a baby herself. 

“Cato! Be careful!” She shrieked, but curled into his chest as she had done thousands and thousands of times in her life. 

“You act like I’ve ever dropped you.”

_____________________________________________________________

“No mama, no sleepy.” Stella Sanford shakes her little head, blonde ringlet curls brushing over her pajama clad shoulders with every move. Regardless of her pouting, and boy does she know how to tilt her little lips into a pout, she flops into her usual bedtime position with her head on her mother’s right arm. 

“Yes, Stella, you have to go to sleep. You can’t wake up for your birthday if you don’t go to sleep first.” Glimmer tries softly, bringing her arm up to wrap around Stella, twisting her fingers through the ends of her soft baby blonde hair. She’d remain here until Marvel came upstairs, when she’d effortlessly roll right into his arms for the rest of the night. A baby for each of them to hold– well, toddlers now. “And Sissy’s already sleeping, she’s going to get to have her birthday too…”

“No sleepy,” Comes from the muffled voice of Aurelia on her chest, who doesn’t even lift her head to see her mother or her twin sister, instead keeping her face buried in her favorite pink blanket the three of them fell asleep under every night. “Sing song, mama?”

“You already got your sing song, baby.”  She soothes, brushing her hand over the back of her baby soft pajamas, the tips of her fingers tracing the tiniest little shapes on the top of her back. “And your story, and another book, and your kisses..”

“P-eeease, mama?” Stella flutters her long eyelashes at her mother, resting her chin right on her chest next to her twin. “one sing song.”

“One sing song.” Aurelia chimes in, one of her little hands escaping her blankets and coming up to touch her mother’s face gently. “Pease?”

Glimmer audibly sighs, grabbing Aurelia’s little hand and kissing her open palm, using her other hand to pull Stella closer. They’re just her babies, babies who were two years old as of early tomorrow morning, how could she tell them no? 

Especially now, when the days of them holding onto her and sleeping in her arms are slipping away so quickly? 

“What sing song do you want? You can’t have the birthday one until tomorrow-”

“No words sing song.” Aurelia explains, twisting a hundred and eighty degrees in her mother’s arms so that she can face her sister now too. 

“...no words…baby, that's not a song?” Glimmer tries, taking the opportunity  to spread their pink blanket out over the three of them, now equally covering both Stella and Aurelia where they would sleep until Marvel was done with birthday set up. 

“No words sing song!” Stella agrees with an enthusiastic nod, her little nose scrunching up with her smile in an expression she most definitely did not inherit from her mother. “Like this!” 

Glimmer watches with a bemused smile as Stella tries to demonstrate her request, with little furrowed eyebrows and pursed lips. It’s adorable, almost to the point that Glimmer forgets her girl is trying to show her something. 

“...oh you want me to hum you a song? That’s not singing, silly girlies.” 

“Hum song.” Stella outright demands this time, resting her little hands on her chin expectantly. “Do the hum song, mama.”

“...the hum song?” Glimmer mumbles, trying to rack through her brain for whatever specific song they mean. There’s the one that comes to mind, though she isn’t sure why or where she learned it. Then again, there aren’t words, it’s only a hummable song. 

“Okay. I’ll do the hum  song, but you gotta cloooose your eyes.” Glimmer instructs, moving her arms intentionally so that they are both individually cradled in an arm, although they are far bigger than the infant babies she brought home in this position two years ago.

 “Goodnight Aurelia-” She starts, leaning down to kiss the top of her far more reserved child’s head, her lips lingering for just a moment as she soaks in the time she gets to share alone with them. “Goodnight Stella..I love you both so so much.” 

“Nigh-nigh mama, loves you” Stella announces contentedly, curling up into her mother’s side dutifully, before peaking one green eye up and over at her sister. “Nigh-nigh sissy.”

“Night-night sissy.” Aurelia declares, wiggling her little pink nails (an early birthday fun day gift from Auntie Cashy) out for Stella’s matching ones (and match Cashmere and Glimmer’s, too of course). “Love mama.”

As she hums to her girls, Glimmer watches closely. She notices how Stella’s hand reaches up to hold on to Aurelia’s, and her heart catches in her throat. She can’t help but remember the very first time she held the two of them together, how her girls who never knew anything but each other, reached only for each other within the first moments of their lives. She was not a twin herself, but there was something otherworldly about the bond between her children, beyond anything she’d ever get to know. Even now, almost two years to the day since they were born, they still fall asleep every night holding each other’s little hands. As it was right now, it was almost always intentional. Just two halves of the same soul, always reaching for the piece that completes them.

Glimmer never takes advantage of how lucky she is to have the children that she does, what a miracle it is that she gets to be their mother. 

She never forgets just how deeply loved her daughters are, by so many people beyond herself, either. 

Now, for example. Her sister and brother were adamantly downstairs helping her husband decorate for the girl’s second birthday, with no fewer than 730 pastel balloons to blow up and intentionally place around the first floor. It is arguably the least sexy, most unromantic way for her sister to spend the eve of Valentine's day, something Cashmere most definitely would point out to her later. Fortunately the seven pm bedtime of the twins meant they would be finished decorating before Cashmere was even due to start her skincare. 

The point being, Cashmere and Gloss didn’t have to be here. These twins are not their children, they have no responsibility to them, and yet here they are. 

Not to forget that Marvel, the sweet sweet man that he is, would most certainly come up with a gift for her. Claiming that, yes it was the girls’ birthday, but it was her who physically birthed them into the world and that she deserved as much recognition as they did. 

There's something remarkable about him as a husband and as a father that almost, just almost, makes her think about risking a boy for just one more child to watch him raise. While she likes to think that she was born to be a mother, it cannot be denied that he wanted those girls just as badly as she did. 

She can physically feel Aurelia fall asleep on top of her, when any tension in her little body just releases at once and she fully gives into the embrace of her mother. Stella never takes long after Aurelia, though it is far more subtle to hear her breathing pattern even out so distinctly.

Two entire years of this being her life, two years of big green eyes staring at her, two years of “mama” in high pitched little voices, two years of little humans who trusted her for everything they could ever need. 

She isn’t sure she’ll ever get used to this being her real life, as if she will ever accept it as anything more than the dream it feels like. 

It’s unbelievable to her, that this is the life she gets to live.That somehow, after everything, she has been granted this chance. It feels beyond a dream to have one daughter who prefers strawberry jelly over grape, or another daughter who cries if her bubbles in her bathtub pop. What a privilege it is to sort little socks embroidered with A’s and S’s, to have two of every set of pajamas and every tutu. 

It’s nothing short of a dream, nothing short of a miracle, that Glimmer even survived long enough to be a mother at all. 

Marvel moves so quietly that she doesn’t even hear him come into the room, and is only alerted to his presence by the shift of the other side of the bed when he sits on their shared bed.

She pauses her mindless humming, glancing up over at him with a soft smile on her face. She notices something speckled on the thin fabric of his white shirt, but pays very little attention to it as he so carefully slides into bed beside her with a well practiced agility that only comes from long dedication to not waking the girls with a shift in the mattress. 

“Don’t stop on my account.” He defends, leaning over oh so carefully to kiss her on the cheek without disturbing the freshly sleeping toddlers in her arms. “Balloons, streamers, and the special birthday plates are set up. Your sister did tell me I’m ruining her valentines day because I said she couldn’t come wake them up to give them their first present. She’ll get over it.”

Glimmer gives him the softest smile as his hands thread under Stella, expertly pulling her to his side of the bed where she would sleep incredibly soundly for the rest of the night . As if to illustrate her thoughts, her baby curled right up against her father, burying her face in the fabric of his shirt. She’s paying such close attention there to his side, that it dawns on her exactly what the speckles on his shirt are. 

She reaches out to grab the white fabric, and the deep maroon blossoming along his side confirms exactly what she suspected. “Are you….bleeding?!” 

“Oh! Yeah! It’s nothing! Just your brother and the staple gun! No harm done!” Marvel brushes off, grabbing the free edge of the pink blanket and dragging it over him too. He offers her a comforting smile, grabbing at her hand. “Hey. Glim. I’m fine. Seriously. Your brother started thinking a bit too much about why we were decorating and how the girls came to be, and you know how he gets! He’s just..protective of you. He’ll get over it one day. Or he won’t, and he’ll try to kill me one day a year every year for the next twenty. Either way, I can take it. And probably deserve it a little.”

“He does not get to hurt you,” Glimmer warns, shaking her head in firm but loving disapproval. “I’m a big girl, and I made my decision. And I would make that choice over and over and over again. And I will remind him of that tomorrow.” She shifts closer, as far as she can without the risk of waking Aurelia in her arms. “They don’t get to act like they’re number one aunt and uncle and then act like that towards you. It’s infuriating” She mumbles, taking the chance to move just a few inches closer, unable to fully close the gap between them. “You don’t deserve that.”

“It’s okay, Glimmer, I can take it. They don’t mean anything by it. Besides…maybe they’re just jealous.”  He does his part to shift closer  too, leaving just enough space between them for the girls to move to. “‘Cause I got two of these,” he gestures to the sleeping twins, pulling Stella up to sleep on his chest, mirroring Aurelia on her mother’s. “And they don’t have any. And I get a you, Glimmer. They can say whatever they want, because really, I won.”

“Yeah, well, my sister doesn’t pay attention to anything but her own reflection, and my brother is her lapdog. I wouldn’t want to be them, either.” 

“Especially not Cashmere, she’s got Enobaria with those teeth-” Marvel jokes, earning him a little nudge from Glimmer. 

“God don’t bring that up, there are some things I don’t need to picture–”

“Hey, that’s just mentally picturing. I have actual proof of the things I've done with their sister.” He teases, pointing between the sleeping blondes in their arms. “We don’t need them to like it. We just need them to help blow up balloons once a year. They like the girls, that’s what matters.”

Glimmer feels like her heart physically hurts in the center of her chest, when she looks up and sees the way he just looks at her with such love and dedication in those blue eyes. Blue eyes she wishes were reflected in one of her daughters, sometimes, if for no other reason than how much she selfishly loves them. “....I love you.”

“I love me, too.” Marvel teases, before catching her face in his hand. “I love you, more than anything. And I’m really glad we accidentally pulled off this two for one special thing, because we have really, really cool kids.” 

And for all the anxiety, the uncertainty, the discomfort, the stress, and the downright fear that came with the time leading up to the birth of her children… she wouldn’t have it any other way. After it all.. she’d go through every single moment all over again if she meant she held her daughters at the end of it. “...they’re the best.” 

“You’re the best.” He promises, finally just slipping his arm around her hips and pulling her closer, damned with keeping space for now. He pauses, and shakes his head for a moment as if he just remembered something. “That song you were humming when I came in..they ask for the no words sing song alllll the time…where the hell did that even come from?”

“Absolutely no idea.”

_______________________________________________

“Good morning.”  Glimmer’s raspy, sleep-addled voice in the doorway would have jolted Clove awake had it not been for the fact she had already been wide awake the majority of the night and into the early morning. She stands in the doorway with hair in two frizzy braids that are passively untwisting and oversized sweatshirt with sleeves that cover her hands, and the way she is rubbing at her eyes with said sleeves make her look nothing short of an oversized toddler coming to her mother for comfort in the middle of the night. 

Except Glimmer is a twenty five year old woman and Clove is not her mother. 

“Can I get in bed?” Glimmer murmurs, though it is nothing more than a formality as she is already pulling up the comforter on the opposite end of the bed from Clove and sliding one leg in. “Ew, this is Cato’s side, I don’t want to lay in these sheets, I know what goes on here-” She scrunches up her nose, but plops her head down on his pillow anyway.

“The sheets are clean-ish. Nothing is going down in this bed for a long fucking time. Fuck, what time is it–” She twists her head to look over at Glimmer, who is making herself plenty comfortable in Clove’s bed. Clove on the other hand is half sitting, half leaning, with her neck just slightly propped up by the pillows. Most importantly is her baby, all of five (six, now) days old, scrunched up on her chest, but incredibly safe and protected in the arms of his mother. She ceases her humming, some old song she can’t seem to get out of her head, before stifling her own yawn into her son’s hair. “What are you doing here? Did Cato send you to come babysit me?”

“It’s five forty two in the morning. Five forty five is the morning workout start time for you district two psychopaths apparently. Enobaria and Brutus are downstairs with Cato, they’re going down to the basement.” Glimmer stifles a yawn with the edge of the blanket, rolling onto her right side so that she is facing Clove, though her eyes are barely even half open to support her argument that she’s awake. “Huh? No it wasn’t Cato. I’m not even babysitting you per say–just keeping you company while everyone else works out- okay, Enobaria came into my room and pulled me out of bed by my ankle and said I had to come sit with you. Not that I mind!”

“Do they think i’m a fucking baby and can’t watch myself?” Clove snaps, wiggling so that she too is laying flat on her back next to Glimmer. It had been six days– how the hell was she going to do this for eighteen years- and the lack of sleep had gotten to her. It’s not a foreign sensation, they had deprived them of sleep plenty of times during games training and even at the hands of Snow in the capitol…but back then the only person she had to keep alive was herself. Not a whole new needy, helpless human being. “What do they think I'm going to do? Throw him at a target to strengthen my arm?”

“I think they’re more worried about you trying to workout six days after you had a baby come out of you. “ Glimmer explains, stifling yet another yawn into her borrowed pillow. “Not that i’m saying you would-”

“Fuck, Glim, I’m not working out. I can barely walk, it feels like he literally ripped me in half and he might have! I don’t know! I don’t care to find out! I’m pretty sure I'm literally stitched back together!” Clove shakes her head quickly, blinking back the wet feeling in her eyes she doesn’t know whether to attribute to exhaustion or hormonal instability. “...Glimmer everything hurts. It hurts and I can’t do anything and all I do is lay in this bed with this baby and try to pretend that everything is fine but Glimmer it hurts.” 

Glimmer takes the moment to prop herself up on her elbow, recognizing the need to feel more present for her friend. “...of course it hurts, Clove. He’s huge. You are not. It hurts even when they’re little.”

“Yeah, well you had two at the same time, of course that hurt,” Clove insists, but uses the chance to pull her son up closer to her face, where she can continue to place kisses on his head and try to keep him asleep. “It hurts and I can’t tell Cato that because he’ll absolutely freak out or think i’m dramatic or something and I just don’t need that right now-”

“Clove..do you think he doesn’t know? Like he’s dumb but he isn’t that dumb.” Glimmer tries, giving just the slightest eye roll. “He’s constantly worried about you. He texted Marvel seventeen –and I counted– times the day you had the baby telling him he was afraid you were going to die, Clove. He’s stupid but he absolutely can read you like a book.”

“Yeah, well I thought I was dying too, Glimmer!”  She bites back, tension and something else crawling into her tone. “I’ve been in multiple near death experiences, and you know what, it was the only time I had ever actually been scared of it!” 

“But you didn’t! And he’s here and he’s okay and you are okay. You deserve to take care of yourself, too, Clove. I know he’s important and all, but so are you…”

“I am taking care of myself, clearly I'm laying up here in bed all useless while everyone else gets to go actually do something for themselves. And God, Glimmer, this baby wakes up all night and he’s already asleep on me so I just take care of him and I love him and I wouldn’t change a thing but I look at Cato who looks so fucking peaceful and well rested and I want to kill him.” Clove’s breathing and speaking speeds up as she rambles, borderline pushing herself to a meltdown. “I love him. He offers to get up with me, and he does, but he’s just…useless to this baby right now. So he sits up and stares at me as his version of moral support. But it isn’t helping!”

“Oh! Absolutely! I remember one time I woke up in the middle of the night, and I was so tired, and I looked down and I had Stella in one arm and Aurelia in the other and I looked over and Marvel was just..out. And all I wanted was to just slit his throat. After that I started making him wake up all night, too. Which…they’re pretty useless but it makes you feel less alone. You’re the only person in the world who can take care of that baby, Clove, and it’s lonely and it’s hard but when he’s like a year old and all he wants is you, it’s the best feeling in the world”  Glimmer sits up just a little, holding both her hands out and making a gesture towards herself. “Give me the baby.”

“What? No, he’s fine–” Clove shakes her head rapidly, both her hands wrapping around his little back, holding him somehow closer to herself. 

“Clove. You’re exhausted. More than I’ve ever seen you, and that's saying something, considering we literally went through Hunger Games together. You came back from literal capital torture looking less tired. Give me the baby.”  She once again waves both hands towards herself. “Do you trust me?”

“Well yeah of course I trust you, it’s just not your job to take him.” Clove insists, shaking her head firmly, but glances sideways down at her baby. “It’s my responsibility to take care of him.”

“Clove. Give me the baby. I swear I won’t leave this bed. Give me this baby and take a nap.” Glimmer all but demands, shuffling her body to sit up a little more properly. She shoves her hands closer to the baby, patiently waiting in that position. “Let me help you. It’s what I'm here for.”

“You’re here so I don’t go try to do a sit up.” Clove hesitates, but finally acquiesced and slides her fingers under her son’s chest, lifting her son so that she can look at his sleepy face before gently hovering him closer to Glimmer. 

“You don’t have the core strength for a sit up right now, who are you kidding.” Glimmer flashes the baby a bright smile, all but abandoning her exhaustion as she pulls him into her arms. “Hey little buddy!” She coos at him, holding his head in one hand and his body with the length of her opposite arm. “You’re still such a cutie, even though you look like your dad!” 

Clove somehow looks both visibly more tense as she rolls on her side to face Glimmer, and also more relaxed at the same time. “He’s got a cute dad, of course he’s cute.” 

“Isn’t it annoying that you did all the work and he looks like him though?” She points out, gently shushing the baby as she bounces him just slightly in her arms. “I wouldn’t know what that’s like, obviously.”

“I wouldn't want him any other way.” She half mumbles, reaching her top hand up to hold on to his little body, despite the fact Glimmer is plenty capable of taking care of him. She sees the skeptical look from Glimmer, and gives her a tired half-scowl. “Leave me alone, I’ve been touching him in some way for like..ten months.”

“You’re just so maternal it’s cute.”  Glimmer grins, wiggling down so that she is laying more parallel to Clove. “He’s safe, Clove. I’ll wake you if he needs you. I promise.” 

Clove rolls her eyes to make a point, but her eyes do not bother re-opening for Glimmer to notice. 

Glimmer of course notices, particularly when Clove’s hand goes fully limp on top of the baby. She laughs to herself, never out loud in fear of waking Clove who barely wants to sleep as is, as Clove slips in and out of deep sleep, occasionally humming something over and over even while unconscious. 

“You’ve got a good mama, Atlas. Be good for her, okay?” Glimmer whispers to the tiny blond boy– okay, not tiny in compared to the actual tiny babies she herself made. “Your dad though, you can scream at him all you want.”

This is how Cato finds them an hour later, when he comes up stairs and sees Glimmer in his bed. Clove’s practically curled up in Glimmer’s side, her hand resting on top of the baby, though otherwise she is dead to the world.  

“Go home, Blondie, you’re in my spot.” Cato demands, holding a low-slung towel on his hips, nodding his head towards the door. “And don’t get any ideas about taking my kid with you.”

“Jealous, I'm in bed with your wife?” Glimmer taunts, but gives a firm shake of her head. “You can have her back after you make me breakfast, as a ‘sorry you had to come over at 5 am’ treat.”

“You act like you mind it. You’re getting to hold a new baby without any responsibilities.” Cato runs a hand through his wet hair, before dragging it down the side of his face. He struggles to get out the words ‘thank you,’ but it’s understood when he rubs at the back of his neck and asks. “Do you want me to wake Marvel to make waffles or wake Marvel to make french toast.”

“Mmm, I was actually hoping for an egg white omelet?” Glimmer scrunches her nose in a semi pout, sticking out her bottom lip playfully. 

“Can he make that?”

“Absolutely not.” 

“Great. He’s making french toast then.”

It becomes a daily pattern for the next month and a half. 

______________________________________________________

It is literal years before anyone thinks about the song for more than a few seconds, other than long enough to remember to start singing it. 

“Did you learn that song from Cashmere?” Clove asks from her spot at the kitchen island, sitting on her barstool as she stirs a bowl of ice cream and sprinkles in her hand. It had been her favorite treat for the duration of her second– and final– pregnancy, but usually she had a blonde boy breathing down her neck for a bite. She takes the moment to enjoy her snack in peace– without her husband or toddler demanding she share with the same pouty face and wide blue eyes.

Sometimes she felt like she married a child and then went and made him an identical, miniature version of himself to be his new best friend. 

Enobaria crinkles her eyebrows, her face twisting from bemusement at the dark haired little girl in her arms, to actual irritation. “Did you lose your mind when this one came out?” She holds up the tiny baby girl, swimming in the little sleeper that her brother once barely fit in, as if for emphasis. “She’s been here for three days, you can’t blame her anymore.”

Three days which Enobaria has had to hear every night from Cashmere on the phone back in District One, are the longest three days she’s had in years. 

Enobaria couldn’t leave her brand new three day old niece any faster than Cashmere was willing to leave her ten day old one.

“What! I learned it from Glimmer I think. I dunno. It always puts Atlas to sleep, Sevina doesn’t seem to care about it yet.” Clove shrugs, glancing past Enobaria to catch a glimpse of her two year old son, being chased around the pool by his father. “I just assumed if I learned it from her, you learned it from Cash too-”

“Clove, that song is old District Two. I’m talking before the first war level old.” Enobaria explains, before her attention is brought right back down to the tiny girl in her arms. She never knew Clove at this age, but she can’t stop herself from wondering if this was exactly what it had been like to hold her. 

“How would I know it then?”

 “Because you were once a toddler who didn’t sleep and I was a desperate teenager.”

[clatoera]

Picket Fence is Sharp as Knives Chapter 8: You Knew What You Wanted, and Boy You Got Her

Heeey besties sorry for yet another middle of the night fic drop. We are back and better than ever with some Clato content. This one and the next two are just all about them so! Live laugh clato era!. The next one..is in fact the one you have all been waiting for and I think this one gives the hint as to what that will be. Fun fact about this chapter, is this is the chapter i've been scheming for over a year. It is the reason I made the twins identical. All for this chapter to happen.

Masterpost

AO3

Title from Taylor Swift So High School, because this is like..referencing the uh..we'll just say readiness of her LOL. IDK it'll make sense when you read it.

As always let me tag my beloved @kentwells and @bodyelectric77 who literally listen to me do nothing but talk about this fic. I love u thank you for sticking around.

The first thing Clove does, every time she comes home, is kicks her shoes off without untying them. In the back of her mind she can hear her grandmother, telling her that's how she ruined them, by stepping on the feel with the opposite toe and yanking her foot out by the ankle. Later, she can hear Enobaria telling her at least she’s efficient and in all areas of her life she’s a quick girl. Now, she’s twenty three and even still, it is just so much simpler to slip her foot out of her shoes than take the time to untie them.

 She can always buy more. 

It’s one of the many things that, after the war that upended her life, has become part of new routine. It should shock noone that the kids who were raised in the strictest, highest level of training academy of District Two, grew into adults who craved some sort of order. Ones who especially craved it once every other aspect of the world around them changed. 

It was so simple, really. Clove goes on her little– little, being anywhere from four to twenty miles depending on how much her body could take– run. She comes home. She enters through the back door into the kitchen, because if she came in the front and Enobaria was home Cashmere would catch her on her way and talk to her for fifteen minutes. She took off her shoes, left then right, losing about an inch of height once the running shoes were off her feet. She takes approximately five steps to the island in the center of her kitchen, where she would take off her jacket if it were a cool day. On summer days like today, she pulls the elastic out of her hair and lets it tumble past her shoulders and to the middle of her back where it covers the exposed skin between the elastic bands of her workout clothes. Because it is the beginning of September and summer is threatening to close in on them anyday, she sometimes treats herself to the last of whatever seasonal fruit she has on hand. 

Today, though, she bypasses the snack as she glances at the clock above the stove. Six thirty. Something about the time brings her pause, as she cocks her head and strums her nails along the marble countertop. Six thirty. Early September. She just has this sense that she’s missing something. Were they supposed to be somewhere today?  

“Babe?” Clove calls out, distracted as she counts out something on her fingers. No. That wasn’t today. Nope, not that either. Nope, the trip to Four is next weekend. Enough seconds pass with no response that Cato either did not hear her or is not home, and at least if it’s the latter she can assume he remembered whatever she didn’t. She tries again, “Cato? Babe, are you home?” 

As she calls out she makes her way from the kitchen over towards her living room, still perplexed by whatever it is she apparently forgot to write down. She’s missing something. “Cato, I think we’re supposed to be doing something?” She tries again, but as she rounds the corner she is aggressively reminded of what she was supposed to be doing today. 

“Oh look, there’s your Aunt Clovey.” 

Clove stops short in the doorway, taken back by Cato standing not too far from the center of the room holding not one but two little blonde babies in either arm. Six months old, almost, and yet compared to the size of him they may as well have been six weeks. 

 God he’s fucking huge.

Focus, Clove, Focus.

Clove pauses, leaning her head on the doorframe for just the slightest of a second before she crosses the couple of steps to stand directly in front of Cato and the girls, who even still are all significantly above her eye level. “Cato..” Clove starts, an artificially sweet tone filling her voice as she reaches up to grab the hand of one of the twins, not entirely sure which is which yet. “Where did these babies come from?”

“Uh, Glimmer? I mean technically I guess they came from Marvel first but–” Cato shrugs, in doing so making both of the twins giggle as they’re lightly bounced in his arms. 

Early September. Six thirty. Three months after her wedding anniversary which is..Glimmer’s. 

“No shit, I know they came from Glimmer, Cato. I mean where is their dear mother?” Clove rolls her eyes at him, but holds her hands out to the baby he holds on his left, allowing her to lean her upper body into her hands and transfer into Clove’s awaiting arms. 

“She just left, literally minutes before you got home, you probably would have run into her if you came in the front.” Cato explains, though he doesn’t even spare a look in Clove’s direction. Instead he directs all of his words in the direction of the little blonde he still holds, gasping desperately for the baby’s attention. His efforts are rewarded as the baby reaches her little hand up to his face, grasping her little fingers at any part of his face she can find a grip in.

“I can’t believe she actually left them. I don’t think she can even sleep without holding them. I thought they’d be eighteen before she could step away.” Clove mumbles, running her own spare hand through the soft baby curls of whichever girl she holds. “Which one is this?”

“Oh, she didn’t want to leave them. She looked like she was going to cry so I just shut the door on her. I told her she needed to go have dinner or mediocre sex or something.” Cato waves off, peeling the baby’s hand off of his face before he flips her around to face Clove. In the same motion he settles her on his shoulders, little baby hands grabbing fistfuls of his hair in the meantime. He’s been built for a lifetime of discomfort, and so the grasp of a six month old was absolutely nothing on him. The silly smile does in fact start to fall from his face at Clove’s follow up question, and he narrows his eyes at the baby absolutely pulling at Clove’s free flowing hair. “You know, I didn’t get a chance to ask. She was grabbing their hands and I could see the tears and I just pushed her out.”

Clove raises a disbelieving eyebrow, taking the minute to narrow her eyes at her husband. “...you didn’t think to clarify which of the identical twins was which?”

“Well I would have, but I thought she was going to change her mind so. No. How about we’ll call this one Glimmer Two,” Cato holds up the baby’s arm and makes her wave at Clove, which earns an excited little babble in Clove’s direction. “And yours can be Glimmer Three.”

“She’s going to actually kill us if we mix them up. What happens when we switch them and then Stella spends her entire life thinking she’s her sister” Clove teases, but glances down at her own assigned baby who is fascinated by shoving fistfulls of dark hair into her mouth. 

“Stella?” She tries, looking between the two for a reaction. Both are too fascinated with the adult who holds them to notice, so she tries the alternative. “...Aurelia?” Again, neither grace her with any sort of attention or acknowledgement, and Clove huffs in impatience. “Now I know they know their damn names.”

“Yeah, and the superior twin likes me better, but they seem pretty unimpressed right now. Do you think there's a secret third?” Cato questions, trying to turn his head to glance up at his designated twin resting around his neck. “Are you Glimmer Two or Glimmer Four?”

“...I’m color coding them.” Clove determines, glancing around the room for the bag full of outfit changes Glimmer brings everywhere she goes. “Glimmer Two is in Pink, i’m putting this one in purple or something. Also you know if Glimmer hears you call one the superior twin she’s going to lose it.”

“Oh we all know you like Stella better, Clove.” Cato flips his baby back around, quite literally, and she lands in his arms with a squeal of delight. A smug smirk finds his face as he glances Clove over from her head to her toes. “I just like to bet on the littlest ones, you would know about that. Sometimes the runt can surprise you.”

“I don’t like Stella better, Stella just likes me better. Aurelia likes you, anyway.” Clove waves off, holding back her eye roll as she gently unravels the baby’s hand from her hair. She offers him a coy smirk, looking him up and down.  “Maybe I just take pity on the big ones. Especially the big dumb boys.” 

“She’s just saying that, she’s obsessed with me, kid.” He directs towards the baby (who, for what it’s worth is in fact Aurelia), managing to drape the entirety of her little body over the length of his forearm. “It can’t be that bad, they can’t be gone long anyway. I give ‘em two hours max.”

“Lucky for us they actually need their mother so they don’t starve, she’ll come back soon.” Clove assures herself more than anyone else. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the girls, quite the opposite actually. She’d even go as far as to say she adores them, but only to certain people who asked. Still, it wasn’t like she had any experience with being alone and responsible for entirely dependent human beings. Unless, of course, you count preteen Cato. At that thought she glanced around, her attention honing in on the haphazard collections of knives and other weapons around the general vicinity. “...watch her. I need a minute.”

Clove slides Stella down to the floor, and once she is sitting independently on the carpet, Clove goes to step away and collect the literal weapons out of their grasp. Almost instantly a high pitched whining comes from the baby, who immediately has her hands up in the air towards Clove, baby hands clenching into clingy little grasps for attention. Clove pauses, turning in place when she feels the little hands grabbing at her sock. “Seriously?”

The whining intensifies, turning desperate and higher in pitch as Clove glances down at the baby by her leg. She notices the pouty lower lip and almost immediately freezes. “No, no no no, no crying. Please. No crying.” Clove’s eyes immediately flit up to Cato, who’s still standing by her with the smuggest grin on his face. “A little help would be nice, Cato.”

“Fuck it, Clove. They can’t move anyway.” Cato points out, nodding his head towards the whining baby at her feet. “She’s probably literally never been put down in her life, just hold her.”

Clove audibly sighs, and exchanges the handful of metal for a handful of baby. It’s like she’s hit the metaphorical off switch, and the baby immediately stops her threat of tears. Stella settles right against Clove’s hip , laying her head down on her shoulder with not a threat of shedding a single tear. “Is this a joke? Are we going to have to hold them all night?”

“That has to be Stella. She liiikes you.” Cato decides, before he decides to kick back onto the couch with the twin he has deemed Aurelia. “Don’t act like the world’s ending, there’s worst things to be doing than holding cute babies, Clove.”

“They are cute.” Clove muses, resting her cheek on top of the little blonde head on her shoulder. “It’s fucking weird, they really do look just like Glimmer. It’s weird to be holding little versions of Glimmer.” 

“They’re just lucky they don’t look like Marvel.” Without much warning Cato reaches out and grabs Clove by the band of her sports bra, jerking her back towards the couch. As soon as her knees hit the edge he pulls her down and to his side, looping his free arm around her waist. 

It’s instinctive, the way she pulls her feet up and tucks them over his knee, angling her body towards him like the second nature that it is. “Isn’t it like..a weird thing to you? That our friends made these. Like..literally made them. Glimmer grew these hands.” She holds up Stella’s hand for emphasis, before it once again embeds in the lengths of her hair. 

“I feel like they should probably thank us for existing, I mean it was our wedding. It’s not typical that you need to ask your friends to watch your six month olds on your first anniversary.” Cato teases, before he pinches at Clove’s exposed skin. 

“Glimmer doesn’t appreciate the reminder of her shotgun wedding, you know that.” Clove flinches out of his grasp, letting out a yelp that startles one of the twins out of whatever little trance they seemed to be in. “She’s a good mom though. They’re lucky girls, to have ended up with her. I think she was born to be a mother.”

She misses the way Cato seems to be staring at her with something on his mind, as she has to once again pry her hair out of the death grip of a child. This time she has to also pull her strands of hair from Stella’s fist and mouth, only barely containing her disgust at moisture in her hair. “Do you think they’re hungry?”

“Huh?” He is only half paying attention, pulled from a daydream or something as Clove brings him back to their current reality. “What did you say?” “I said do you think they’re hungry, space cadet.” Clove teases, pushing herself back off of him so she could settle the baby in her lap. “She’s trying to eat my hair.”

“..can we even feed them anything in this house? Can babies…eat? I’m sure their parents fed them, Clove. Do they even have teeth?”

“Oh they have teeth, haven’t you heard Glimmer complain about it? Besides, babe, we go to their house three days a week so I can fill their fridge with baby and Marvel safe snacks. We’ve been doing it for two months.” She points out, before she’s off the couch and heading back towards the kitchen with one of the twins still tightly situated on her hip. 

Cato wastes no time following behind, albeit a little annoyed to be off the couch already after he had just started to get comfortable with her. “Are they even hungry?”

“I don’t know Cato, I just know I feel this urge to feed them, okay? Like it’s my job.” Clove waves off, flittering over to her usual side of the kitchen as Cato settles in across the island.

“Hmm..is it you who likes strawberries or are you the kiwi baby?” Clove asks the baby in her left arm, grabbing a handful of both out of the fruit bowl in the middle of the table. 

“I don’t think she’ll answer you.” Cato teases, sitting his twin on the island and holding her up against his chest. “I actually don’t know when babies talk.”

“I”m surprised these ones don’t already, considering their dad never shuts up.” She comments, holding her left hand firmly down on her twin’s arms and hands, so she cannot lunge for the knife in her right hand. “They like..babble at each other though. They’re probably telling each other we’re incompetent.” As if it’s nothing, Clove easily uses the knife to start cutting perfect heart shaped slices out of a strawberry with only one hand, the other still holding Stella (she thinks) back. She lets go of her hand to give her a single sliced heart, and immediately has to grab at her little baby hand once again. “No, baby, please don’t maim yourself. You have parents who could actually try to kill me.” She tilts her head when Stella crinkles her little nose, looking at Clove in confusion before resuming her babbling at her. “...are you the kiwi baby then?” 

She slides Cato the plate of strawberries for the other baby, before she resumes her one handed slicing and shaping. “How about we do Kiwi stars, since we have strawberry hearts?” Clove asks the babies, who simply continue their normal baby babbles at her and each other. 

She’s distracted by her knife work, handing pieces of fruit back and forth to both of the twins, each time emphasizing the fruit and the shape before she’d hand them a new slice. She feels the sticky kiwi covered hand on her collarbone and lets out an audible groan, “That's not very nice, baby blondie.” 

Clove glances up to see if Aurelia (maybe) is also covering Cato in the sugary handprints, and is instead met with Cato just staring at her with an adoring depth to his blue eyes. There's half a smile on his face, and he just looks lovestruck. Clove narrows her eyes back at him, shaking her head just a little. “What are you looking at?”

“Just you.” Cato muses, not even phased when a sticky piece of strawberry is shoved towards his mouth as he ducks out of the way. “I’m thinking, that's all. You just look really really good right now. With her.”

Clove hesitates, watching as Aurelia succeeds in shoving a now mushed strawberry into his unsuspecting mouth. Clove truly cannot help but laugh, nose scrunching up as she does so, and it must be infectious as little miss Stella laughs at Clove laughing at Cato.  

He clearly decides not to push his luck with whatever he’s thinking about (and Clove, for what it’s worth can connect the dots). “Can you make some big people food, too? I don’t think I can survive on star shaped strawberries.”

“Um Educate yourself, Cato, the strawberries are hearts and the kiwis are the stars.”

“My mistake, how about some triangle shaped steak?”

Clove does make the two of them adult dinner, too. Albeit it all ends up cut into finger foods, consisting of half moon shaped sweet potato slices, perfectly square carrot chips, and yes, even triangular shaped overcooked (“Intentionally Overcooked, you can’t give a baby rare steak, Cato”) slices of steak.

Later, Clove pawns both twins off on Cato so she can rinse the traces of smushed sweet potato and carrot, along with the sweat from her much earlier run, out of her hair and off of her skin. She wins the race to the shower with the simple reminder that she fed them so she gets to have ten minutes to wash handprints off of her skin. 

She comes back downstairs more than just ten minutes later, an oversized shirt she borrowed from Cato serving as a dress, wet hair wrapped in a towel atop her head and safely out of the grip of curious little babies. She’s halfway back down the staircase, when she is brought to a stop by the sound of Cato and his one sided conversation.

No, not one sided, but met with avid, nonsensical baby babbles in response. 

“See, you roll the ball and it comes back and you have to get it when it comes back, you have to catch it Glimmer Two..Three..Two…Whichever Mini Glimmer.” 

Clove peaks her head around the corner, to see Cato sitting  less than the length of his legs away from the wall, the twins situated side by side in front of him. He’s rolling a weighted ball into the wall, letting it slowly return and land at the feet of either twin. Once the ball hits one of their feet they squeal in delight, before they both turn back to look at him sets of wide green eyes waiting for him to push it back.

“You can use your legs! Come on, kick it.” Cato tries again, this time grabbing one of their little feet and nudging at the ball, earning delighted giggles from both of them. 

“Where did you learn how to do that?” Clove interrupts, breaking into a bemused smile as she settles down on the floor beside them. Almost instantly his hand comes up to rest on her knee, squeezing gently before he nudges the ball away. 

“This? I used to do this when Cora was little. I didn’t know how to play with her.” He explains, using his other hand to send the ball rolling back towards the baseboard again. “I still don’t know how, apparently.”

“They clearly love it.” She assures him, raising her eyebrows into a playful smile as the girls both lock in their gaze on her instead of the ball. One reaches little grabby hands towards her again, and she offers the baby her finger to hold to tie her over with Cato for just a little bit longer. “You’re good with them. Like…really really really good. You should probably do it more often.”

“I don’t think they’re going to be very athletic, which is kind of shocking considering who they came from..” Cato muses, nodding towards the baby that is so enamored with Clove. “I think they like you, Clovey.”

“They’re six months old, give them time to grow some coordination.” Her smile softens as she leans in and scoops up whoever it is, letting the baby snuggle directly into her arms. “Baby, which one of them is this?”

“I have to be honest Clove, I have no fucking idea.” 

“Glimmer will be back for them soon, anyway.” Clove shrugs, taking the opportunity to lay her head on Cato’s shoulder, stifling her own yawn as she watches one of the twins do the same. “This is weirdly exhausting. Not in a bad way. Just..I’m really fucking tired.”

“It’s probably easier if there's only one.” Cato shrugs, gently pushing the ball out of reach and settling the remaining twin in his own arm. “You’re right though. I don’t know how Glimmer is literally always bouncing off of a wall with them.”

“It’s ‘cause they’re all she’s ever wanted.” Clove slurs, stifling another yawn into his shoulder, leaving her forehead pressed into him for just a minute. “It’s like she’s living a dream.”

“I mean…I get it.” He admits, keeping his eyes focused on the baby who was rubbing adamantly at her little tired eyes. 

“Yeah?” Clove mumbles in response, resting more and more of her weight against Cato’s arm. 

“Yeah.” He reiterates, subconsciously moving his right arm containing the baby, lulling her closer to the sleep she clearly craved. “I think we should talk about-”

Before he can finish his sentence, he feels the bulk of weight sink into his left arm. He glances over to Clove, who has fully slipped to sleep against him, as has the baby who clings to her neck. 

“I guess we’ll talk about it later, huh Kiddo?” He whispers to the baby he holds, who is quickly falling asleep herself. Cato surveys between the three of them, and the tired smile he wears falls when he realizes he has more sleeping girls on his hands than he has arms.

It’s..God only knows..how long later when Clove is startled awake by a hand on her shoulder shaking her gently. “Clove..Clove, we’re back.” 

She’s jolted awake, really, disoriented and confused. Somehow (Cato) she ended up in the recliner, covered in a thick furry blanket with the baby sprawled out on top of her. Her hand almost instinctively comes to the baby’s head as she’s startled awake, just naturally trying to keep her calm and sleeping in her arms. “Huh, what, what time is it?”

“It’s nine thirty one.” Comes an amused, whispering tone from her left, where Marvel’s hand still rests on her shoulder from where he just shook her awake. “The lights were all off, we knew you had to be asleep. How were they?”

“Fuck, I thought it had to be like three in the morning, what do you mean it’s only nine thirty?” Cato mumbles from across the room, where he’s fully sprawled out on the couch with the other twin asleep on top of his chest. 

“We told you we’d only be a few hours..” Glimmer chimes in, the noise of sequins rustling against each other mixed with heels on hardwood announcing her entrance. “Where are my girls, I miss them!”

“Can you whisper, we just got to sleep.” Clove whines, forcing her eyes open as she feels the baby she holds beginning to move and wake at the sound of her parents. She peaks an eye open up at Marvel where he stands over her and can’t help but smirk at the ruffled hair and pink lipstick at the collar of his shirt and dipping underneath. “Looks like you had a good night.”

“Good for you, we didn’t watch them for nothing then. I’m proud of you, Marvel.” Cato mocks, though he doesn’t even bother to open his eyes to make fun of them. 

Glimmer’s eye roll may as well have been audible, as she is heard tossing her shoes to the side with an audible thunk as they hit the wall. “You two are the actual worst, now give me Stella. I need her first. We’re just staying here, by the way, it’s too late to take them on the train.”

“It’s nine fucking thirty? Too late, what happened to nights starting at nine thirty” Cato questions, finally forcing himself to a half sitting position so he can fully (playfully) berate their friends. 

“It’s fine, you can stay, that's..fine. Whatever.” Clove half heartedly waves a hand off in defeat. “Stella? Do you have a favorite? Is that why you need her first?”

“Don’t be silly, Clove. It’s the schedule. I feed Stella while Marvel gives Aurelia her little bath and gets her ready for bed, and then we switch before they go to sleep. It’s a little routine.” Glimmer explains, kneeling beside Clove with a tired smile. “Which one do you have?”

Cato and Clove freeze, eyes flitting towards the other just momentarily. 

“Uh..yeah..I have one of them.” Clove starts, before Cato cuts her off. 

“I have no idea, they’re literally identical. You didn’t color code them, how were we supposed to know?”

Marvel’s eyebrows scrunch together in real confusion, looking between their overly-tired friends. “What do you mean, they’re not identical?”

“The fuck do you mean-”

Marvel laughs, not even bothering to stay quiet for the sake of not waking the girls. It doesn’t hurt, though, because as soon as the baby in Clove’s arms hears him she is woken from her dead sleep. She lifts her little head, whipping it as fast as she can to find the source. As soon as she sees him, despite how tired she is, the widest smile breaks out on her baby face. It’s as if Clove is a stranger as soon as the baby sees her dad, when one baby hand comes up to reach for him. 

He wastes absolutely no time taking his girl, and if the baby seemed to snuggle into Clove before, she practically melts against Marvel as soon as she is in his arms. If a baby could hold stress she would have just released all of it, snuggling her face into the fabric of his shirt. She absolutely clings to him, babbling softly until she’s effectively nestled into him. “Hi angel baby,” He whispers to her, kissing the top of her curl covered head as she clings to her dad. “Did you miss us too?”

“He’s kidding. But, also, I didn’t think I needed to color code them. Their earrings are their initials.” Glimmer teases, reaching down to just scoop the still sleeping Stella off of Cato. “Stella also likes to talk more, and Aurelia likes to bite on her hands more. I think she’s getting another tooth. Can’t wait for that.” She deadpans, instantly pulling her little blonde baby to eye level and kissing all over her face. Stella giggles, wrapping her little hands around the top of Glimmer’s. “God I missed you, sunshine.”

“I swear they liked us!” Clove defends, rubbing at her eyes with the heel of her hand. “I thought they did.” They had initialed earrings. Of course they did. 

“Of course they do, we’re just their parents.” Glimmer promises, before curling up at the end of the couch nearest Clove with Stella absolutely curled up against her. “They’ve never been away from us. They probably thought we were gone forever-”

“Glimmer not this again, please don’t cry-” Marvel pleads, subconsciously swaying back and forth with Aurelia in his arms. 

“I’m not crying. I’m just saying. They’ve never stayed with someone else before. Ever.”

“Not that we minded, but, wasn’t it a little freaky to leave them a District away? I thought you would have asked Cashmere, she’s right there?” Clove asks through a yawn, head resting in the palm of her hand as she rests her elbow on the armrest. “Like I said, not that we care but…”

Glimmer gives a tired smile herself, looking away from her daughter and up at Clove. She even spares a glance at Cato before letting out a little sigh. “We could have asked Cash or Gloss, sure. I dunno. They’re great. They would do everything for me. They would have said yes but…” 

“We talked about it a lot,” Marvel interjects, giving a little shrug. “We barely wanted to leave them at all.”

“We just…thought they’d be better with you two. We’ve never left them, but if something had happened to us and we never came home…we knew they’d be safe here. You’d take care of them. I dunno, it just felt right. We trust you, we felt the best leaving them with you two. You aren’t like..parents. But you could be.” 

“And Cato was going to force us out the door, we knew that too.”

“You’re welcome for that, you clearly benefited, Marvel.” Cato scoffs, but sits forward and digs his hands into his eyes to allow himself to stay awake. Not even ten and he’s fighting sleep, how the hell did he get here from the kid who won the Hunger Games?

“Oh. That's..oh.” Clove whispers, the gravity of their trust in her leaving her borderline speechless. They’ve seen what she was capable of and they still chose her, they still trusted her with the most important part of their lives. “..thank you…”

“At the end of the day, we love Cash and Enobaria but..when it comes to who’s going to do a better job at playing house with our babies..it’s an easy choice. It’s not even a question. You aren’t parents but you could be. Good ones, too.” Glimmer smiles, offering the words with genuine love for her friends. “And Clove knows how to cook, which is a plus too. Speaking of, honey, can you get me a snack?”

“Damn, you got Glimmer asking for food, good for you, you did something right today.” Cato practically jumps off the couch to grab Marvel by the shoulder. “I’m so proud of you. And I’d say thank you, Glimmer, but you’re right. We’ve actually never been less than perfect at anything we’ve ever done ever in our lives. We’re kind of flawless, if you didn’t know!”

“You’re the fucking worst, man.” Marvel mumbles, but does follow Cato’s guidance into the kitchen.

“He is the worst.” Glimmer tells Clove once the boys are gone, tucking her feet up into the couch with her before she shifts Stella in her arms. “Not entirely. I meant what I said. We trust you. And you would be good at it. I know you don’t want to, and I respect that. But you’d be good at it. The girls adore you.”

“...yeah, I know.” Clove admits, curling up on her side, pulling her blanket back up over her shoulder as she turns in her chair to face Glimmer. Before she thinks too long about the fluttery feeling she has in her chest, at the compliments but also just the idea of her own little blondes, she abruptly changes the conversation. “ You’re a good mom, Glimmer. The best, really. But I gotta say,I feel like it’s not the most romantic anniversary in the world, to sleep at your friends’ house with your babies.”

“Clove. I don’t know if we ever would have gotten back together if it weren’t for the girls. We would not be even having an anniversary, let alone married, if it were not for them. They are, quite literally, to thank for that.” Glimmer brushes her perfectly manicured nails over Stella’s curls, keeping her calm and comforted in the safety of her arms. “And you know, I gotta give it to them. You think you can’t love someone any more than you do, right? Like you think you’re living a dream but, Clove, it doesn’t even come close to how much I love him when I see him with the girls. There is nothing, in the entire world, better than waking up next to him with the girls between us. Nothing. It’s quite literally a dream come true. It’s better than a dream, Clove. You think you love someone..but then you make new people to love with them and it’s just…I can’t even describe it, Clove. I can’t describe it. I can only imagine that the reason I survived all of that…nightmare...was to be able to have this life, Clove. I know, it’s not my business, but I hope you get to feel it one day.  There is nothing in the world like it. It is so so so worth all of it. They are worth it.”

Clove pauses for a few seconds that to her feels like hours. She could hesitate, she could start listing off all the reasons she absolutely should not (could not), she could list off the million and one unknowns that she and her routines could not account for. Maybe it’s her exhaustion, or maybe it’s the permanent look of Cato giving her that lovestruck look burned into her brain, but she doesn’t offer a refute. 

“I believe you,” is all she offers instead.

[clatoera]

Picket Fence is Sharp as Knives Chapter 10: The best thing that's ever been mine

GUYS WE MADE IT. We are 30 chapters (31 is you count the prequel) into this fic universe. And we are finally finally finally at baby time! I actually graduate this weekend and so it was an absolute priority for me to get this up for everyone before then (and before I leave the country for a few days). It feels fitting that this chapter, at this point in my life, fell so perfectly.

I won't say much. Y'all know the drill by now. Title from Mine (t swift)

Masterpost

AO3

I just want to thank you all for sticking around so long with me. We've been on this journey for like fifteen months together which is absolutely insane. I am so thankful for you all.

As always. Thank you to @kentwells who has known this was coming for a long time. @bodyelectric77 sorry you're getting tagged again. And my dear @crookedlyniceperson who will probably not like the developmental milestones I gave the twins.

Love you love you LOVE YOU

P.s. Now is your LAST CHANCE to guess the name. Proceed with caution.

It is somehow simultaneously the most overwhelming thing she has ever experienced and far less painful than what she anticipated. Perhaps it is the years of training, the endless stressors she has placed on her body both voluntarily and against her will, but she can’t even say it was the worst thing she ever felt.

It is terrifying, and agonizing, and straightforward, and complicated, and life altering, and incredible, and confusing for Clove.

All she truly knows is that although he did not exist a mere twenty eight minutes ago, a world without him in it now seems unfathomable. 

The contrast of perfect, flawless pale baby skin directly against the landscape of freckles and scars that is her chest feels idyllic and impossible and so so so worth every single moment that came before this.

 Every broken rib in training, every knife sent her way in the games, every single second in Snow’s hands.. Every bit of it was worth this outcome, this moment, this baby of hers.

She’s never had a way with words, and as much as she’d like to say she had some grand greeting waiting for her son, the only thing she had been able to muster was a breathless, overwhelmed, exhausted “You’re okay” to her bruised, smushed little baby boy. 

No. Not little. Not little at all, big enough to get stuck, bruised, and come out with a broken collarbone.

 He is big enough because she is barely the size of an adult and he has gotten everything from his father it seems.

It’s funny, really, Cato had broken her collarbone the day they met too. Life’s funny that way. 

Maybe that simple phrase, that “you’re okay” was her way of acknowledging the trauma and the fear and the uncertainty that had been the last thirty some weeks of her life. A simple you’re okay to signify the crossing of one bridge to another, knowing now without a doubt that this was not destined to be the greatest loss of her life after all she had survived to get to this point. 

She believed they were too lucky to have made it this far unscathed. 

Cato doesn’t consider the things they survived “unscathed.” 

“I just knew he was going to look like you.” Clove doesn’t even look at him, a softness in her voice that feels absolutely foreign in the back of her throat. Her fingers dance along the edge of her baby’s hairline, and slips her fingers under the fabric to pull it off all together. She doesn’t even know how she knows to do it, but she finds herself using the edge of the sheet to wipe at the absolute mass of soft blonde hair that sticks up in every which direction, like some deep seeded instinct she never expected to manifest. While her left hand holds him close to her, the right continues to run the very tips of her fingers through the thick tuft of hair. “I did all the work, and here he is. Giant and blond.”

“Maybe his eyes are Green?” Cato muses, running his hand in circles over her knee, glancing down at him from the opposite side of her. It had been quite a day for him, too. Albeit he had the easy part, letting Clove dig her angry little nails into the flesh of his forearm as hard as she needed. Still, his life had never changed so wholly and suddenly, quite literally in the blink of an eye. 

He’d be lying if he hadn’t admitted to even feeling a bit scared at the paleness of her skin, the sheer volume of blood she lost, and above all else the way she herself had actually looked frightened. He could handle her in pain, but fear, that was something completely foreign to them both. 

He’d be doubly lying if he did not admit, that despite not even holding his son in his own arms yet, it was not irrefutably one of the top three best days of his life. 

“They’re Blue, I think…” Clove insists with a tiny headshake, bringing up a single baby hand to her lips, pausing just a moment to revel in the tiny finger nails before she kisses his open palm. 

Then, like her hand wraps around the hilt of a knife, her son’s hand grasps her finger.

“Oh,” Clove swears her voice cracks on a single syllable, but Cato for the sake of them both is smart enough not to mention it (or maybe he himself is so overwhelmed he doesn’t even notice). “Hi, Sweetheart.” She all but coos the words, intently focused on the squinty eyes of her literal newborn, fully intending on determining the color of the eyes she had so patiently grew for him.

 She doesn't ignore the novelty of the way he just so naturally fits in the space of her arms, and for all the outright fear she had felt with every baby she held before him, she doesn’t feel anything of the sort now. Quite the opposite, actually, in that she never wants to let him go.

“Do you still like his name?” Cato’s own hand practically covers the length of their son’s entire body, and truly engulfs his head when he holds it in his right palm. “He looks like an Atlas to me.”

“Yeah…he does, doesn't he?”

Deciding on a name for this baby had arguably been one of the hardest things they had ever had to do. A girl’s name had been so much easier, but it remains unused in exchange for the brilliant blond, blue eyed little boy snuggled directly against her skin. Maybe the reason the boy's name had been so much more difficult is because they knew deep down that's who they would have. Call it intuition, call it a good guess, but neither of them really anticipated that they would be meeting a daughter today. 

Of course they toyed with a C name, a C theme. Cato, Clove… it would be expected to uphold that tradition, to commit to it fully for not only this baby but for any others they would one day have (not that Clove would have even entertained the idea of a second until about twenty seven minutes ago). 

Maybe they’re selfish, maybe they’re vain, but it had been brushed aside pretty quickly for the idea that they would get to share that initial with just each other. They would share enough with their baby– he could have his own initials. C would always just be for Cato and for Clove.

That being said, it opened a floodgate of options. There were District Two traditions to consider, and nothing that could be a name reminiscent of the Capitol, a lower district, or any of the people involved in the war would even be a contender. All in all, they had gone through a list of seventy four names, until lucky seventy five. 

Atlas. 

It checked the District Two box, with roots in ancient cultures. A Greek myth, a man who carried the world on his shoulders, truly holding the weight of the world in his hands.

While unlike his parents, he would never be expected to carry the weight, the glory, the pride of the world in his hands, he is in fact the world to them. 

Atlas, without the weight of the world on his shoulders, but the potential of the whole world in his hands. 

It made so much sense as his name, it may as well have been created with this boy in mind.

Atlas. 

Atlas Kentwell Hadley.  In all his nearly nine pound glory, he truly feels like the entire world in the combined arms of his parents. 

“It’s perfect.”  Clove agrees, offering him a soft, tired smile as she finally tears her eyes away from her boy. She had truly held him for the entirety of his life thus far, and as much as she did not feel ready to let him go, she saw the deep love in Cato’s eyes. It only seemed fair– he had wanted this baby since they were fifteen years old– he had waited long enough. “Do you wanna hold him?”

“I…Yeah, actually. I really do.” Cato admits, unable to resist the smile that spreads across his face as they so gracefully shift the weight of their son from her hands to his own, as if they have practiced a million times.  “Hey, buddy..” It’s so natural the way he brings the boy to his chest, the entirety of his baby body fitting over the length of Cato’s forearm. There were a lot of things in this world those arms were meant to do, and clearly, holding their son is one of them. Of all the great things Cato had been destined to be, the father of this baby was clearly one of them.

They haven’t practiced handing off little babies, not once in their lives, but they’ve spent the entirety of their lives moving as one continuous body. Funny, how they really sort of have combined into one human now haven’t they?

Clove watches as he so gently- a word she’s never associated with Cato– holds their son. The way his hands are beyond the size of the baby’s entire scrunchy body, the way his smile reaches his eye. It’s remarkable, really, that while this baby was quite literally a tenth of her body size, he looked incredibly small in comparison to his father’s arms, arms that are littered with half a dozen bleeding half moon scratches from the force of Clove’s nails digging in merely an hour before.

If Clove is sure of one thing, it’s that she has never ever ever in the entirety of her life felt the way she does exactly right now. She’s loved him for almost ten years, but not like this. Nothing close to this. And honestly, she thought Cato was the love of her life, but he may have been usurped by the tiny, innocent little boy they made instead. “....I can’t imagine it.”

“What, babe?” Cato asks, though he doesn’t look away from his son, instead committed to burning every detail of him into memory, as if he will disappear the second he looks away.

“We thought we’d raise our kids to be victors. I just…looking at him now, I can’t imagine sending him into training, let alone into the games.” Clove admits with a soft sigh, running her hand over her face in exhaustion. “I’ve gone soft, apparently.”

He shakes his head somewhat fiercely, absolutely insistent, looking from their child to her. He never would have imagined saying it either, but she is absolutely deeply right. They never could send this baby off. “No. You’re right, Clove. You’re absolutely right. I couldn’t imagine it either.”

How far they had to have come to be able to look at their son and see anything but their own victor legacy continued in his little baby face. 

She watches as his smile switches to a look of almost perplexion, and he starts looking between the baby and her. HIs hands absently twist and turn, while supporting the baby, he twists him in various positions of the horizontal and parallel.

“What are you doing?” Clove huffs, raising a dark eyebrow as she props her elbow on the pillow to hold her head up in her quivering hand. “He looked pretty comfy before.”

“I’m just trying to see how he fit, you’re not very big you know. And he is.” Cato muses, before bringing him back close to his chest again, directing his attention back to the baby  and the baby alone.

“He barely did. He’s freaking huge. We wouldn’t have had this problem if he came out a week ago when he was supposed to. Besides, he was all scrunched up.” Clove mentions, running her free hand over the length of her face, pausing to dig her palms into her eyes and rubbing briefly. 

“You look exhausted,” Cato brings her out of her mind, the hand that doesn’t hold their baby coming up to brush some of her hair behind her ear for her. “And your hand is still shaking.”

“I am exhausted. That’s fucking hard. It hurt.” She defends, pulling her thin white sheet up almost to her shoulders. “Must be adrenaline.”

“Are you sure you’re okay? You bled a lot, I just don’t want you to die on me.” Not now. Not after everything they went through just to get here.

“I’m fine, Cato, really. I just…I’m tired. I want to go home. This room smells like blood-”

“Yes. Yours.” Cato reminds as if he didn’t just tell her that exact thing moments ago, gently using the hand on her face to tilt her face up to look at him.

She lets out a heavy, anxious sigh, eyes fluttering around the room too look at anyone but him. It’s almost embarrassing to admit how anxious the room makes her. “Exactly. And it just reminds me of– well, that place, and I don’t like how it makes me feel, and I want to go home, Cato. I want to take him home, and I want to go now.”

He doesn’t even question further, he doesn’t push her, just leaning in carefully, mindful to keep enough space between them for their sleeping child, when he places a kiss right on the center of her forehead. As soon as he is pulling away, he swings one leg off the bed, as if he is fully prepared to get up and walk out. “Okay. Let’s go home.”

“Right now?” Clove’s voice fills with audible relief, nearly following his steps to get out of the bed and out the door. 

“Right now.”

Clove isn’t sure how she has the energy or pain tolerance to nearly jump out of the bed, a desperate, frantic search for her actual proper clothes. “We need to get him dressed, too.”

“Awe, I think this is a cute look for him.” Cato teases, but nevertheless uses one hand to dig out their designated little blue outfit on the chance they were correct and he was in fact, well, him. “I think he looks cute in just the minimum.”

“It’s fall, Cato.” Clove scolds, though one look at the playful smile on his face tells her he is absolutely just messing with her. “At least wrap him up in his blanket.”

“You’ve gotten bossier, you know that? I didn’t know it was possible.” Cato plays, but dutifully dresses their boy in the (what should have been) Oversized sweater.

“Now I have two of you to keep alive.” Clove murmurs, turning her own fully dressed– okay, fully dressed in Cato’s clothes– body to face Cato. She holds out both of her hands, gesturing towards herself with them both. “Gimme.”

“I thought you said I had to get him ready?” He taunts, but holds out the scrunchy new baby out to her anyway.

 She audibly hums in contentment the second he is back in her hands, almost instantaneously pulling him in to lay against her chest once again, both her hands holding his little frame up. “We’ve shared a body for..a long time. I miss him. I feel empty without him.” Clove brings his head up just enough so that she can place kisses all over his forehead and cheeks, absolutely clinging to him as his own little fists cling to her skin. “Mmm..okay. I’m ready. Oh! And Cato?”

“....yes, baby?”

“I think I earned a little treat on the way home.” Clove holds the baby up so his face rests against her own. “Don’t you agree, Atlas? Don’t I deserve it?”

The smile is audible in his voice when he tells her, “you can have a treat every day for the rest of our lives.”

(Not that Cato had ever once denied her, anyway).

______________________________________________________________

They tell Enobaria first. Clove demanded it, that before his mother, before any of their friends..Enobaria had to know first. 

To her credit, no more than eight minutes pass from the moment Cato calls her the second time (to which she does not answer), and her letting herself  in from the back door. 

Cato never calls, what else could it have been? 

Cato, to his credit, hangs back when he sees Enobaria come in, knowing fully well that this was not a moment he wanted to intrude on between them. In fact, he makes a point to slip out the back door himself, to give Enobaria and Clove a much deserved period alone.

Clove has no sooner curled herself into one end of the couch, quite literally just settling in, when Enobaria waltzes right into her living room. 

She stops dead in her tracks, as she fully absorbs Clove in front of her. With the dark hair in her face, the way she was all curled up around her kid well– it gave her the sickest, deepest put in her stomach. She forces herself to swallow, forces herself to recollect that she herself is not a twelve year old and Clove is not her eighteen year old mother.  Happy thoughts, happy thoughts for Clove only.

“That was faster than I expected.”  Enobaria nearly whispers, careful not to startle Clove in her very clearly exhausted state, before she slides in right immediately next to her, so close their crossed-legged-knees could touch. “How are you feeling?”

“Easy for you to say, that felt like twenty four days, not twenty four hours.” Clove huffs, before she practically melts back into the arm of the couch. “I’m really really tired. Sore all over. But I'm okay…I’m really okay.” She lifts her right elbow up, and nothing could hide all the love in the world that is written across her face, as she angles her few hour old son up for Enobaria to see. “Isn’t he just absolutely perfect?”

“Holy shit Clove, he’s a monster. He’s huge? How the hell did you do that-” Enobaria’s eyes actually widened in shock, looking between Clove and the rather large newborn in her arms. “He’s as big as you? Should you even be home yet?”

“He’s almost nine pounds, give or take. He’s not that big…okay, he got stuck. It was very traumatic, apparently all of us like a dramatic entrance” Clove defends with a lighthearted air in her voice, her left thumb running over the exposed baby foot in her hand. “We’ll take him back in a day or two to check on him and finish everything. I hated it there. It was just so much like the Capitol and there was blood everywhere from me and I needed out.” She explains, shushing gently as he starts to stretch his little limbs in his arms. “Oh my god, and he has so much hair Enobaria, look!”

To illustrate her point she once again throws the little knit hat to the side, proud as can be of the literal head covered in hair that she created. The product of all of her hard work, breathing, stretching, and sleeping right there in her arms. 

“Now that you point it out he is kind of bruised, huh?” Enobaria muses, cocking her head to truly look down and take in the baby Clove made who, unfortunately, did not get a single bit of her reflected in his appearance. “Another fucking blond baby, Clove, really? I thought for sure you’d come through with that one, did your genes fight at all?”

“I thought the same thing! I thought he’d at least have my hair!” Clove grins, twisting the baby so that he is propped up on her knees, allowing them to get a fuller look at him. “He really does look just like Cato. I think I cloned him.”

“Just what the world needs, another one of him.” She teases Clove, but nevertheless turns on her side to get a better look at her- not the baby, but her. It was like somewhere overnight Clove stopped looking like the toddler she met twenty plus years ago, stopped looking like an overly eager teenager at training, and started looking so– well.. Grown. Enobaria is suddenly glad for another little blond baby in their lives– the dark hair would have been just too deep of a sense of Deja Vu. 

“...You look so much like your mother, you know that? You always have, but right now you really really look like her.”

Clove feels her jaw clench just a little, her eyes flickering over towards the kitchen briefly. Her throat feels like razor blades, squeezing shut and cutting off her words as she tries to squeak them out. “...is Cato here?”

Enobaria shakes her head, eyebrows knitting closer in confusion. “He went outside right when I got here, why–”

“What was wrong with me, Enobaria? That she left me?” Clove whispers, and almost like it’s her instinct she can’t help but pull Atlas from her legs to her arms, holding his head and body flush to her chest. “What was wrong with me?”

“Nothing was wrong with you, Clove, nothing at all-” Enobaria tries to begin, but is quickly cut off by Clove’s continued, frantic, heartbroken rambling. 

“No, something had to be wrong with me. Because I have had him for less than a day, I’ve only had him for a few hours, and you’d have to kill me, you would have to kill me and drag my body away from him to get me to leave him. I must have been broken, or difficult, or bad or I don’t know! Something had to be wrong with me, because how else could she leave me so easily. I would die before I did that.” For Clove, especially, someone who had been so close to death so many times– it was the deepest kind of love she could offer. “I don’t know how she did it.”

“Clove..nothing in the world was wrong with you. Your father? He left. He deserved every terrible thing that happened to him, Clove, he was a terrible person. There was something wrong with him, yes. But you, Clove, you were just a little girl. You were a baby. Nothing was wrong with you.” She attempts, but Clove is so far gone in her head that she isn’t sure anything she says can help that now. 

“Not my father, my mom. How did she just leave, she made me, how did she just..not care to stay with me? Noone liked me but her! At least if I die tomorrow I know that there’s Cato, there’s you, there's Glimmer, there’s people who would want him! Noone wanted me, she knew that, and she left me. How do you leave your baby?” She’s got this baby absolutely pressed to her, as if the weight of him alone will stop her from panicking and hyperventilating. 

“I don’t think you can even compare this, to be fair to her.” Enobaria grabs Clove’s hand, and squeezes tightly to bring her back to earth. “If you had him at sixteen years old, with no money, no future, except the one desperate chance you had to give him one, You would have done the same. It’s easy for you to say that you couldn’t leave– you’ve survived an  extreme life. It took the two of you three hunger games, a war, the end of every life you have ever known, before you are here right now. Your mother was a child. Your mother had one chance to give you even a fraction of the life you have right now, and she took it. She didn’t leave you, Clove, it was her only chance to give you anything. I am the one and only person left who is qualified to say it, without a doubt, that your mother loved you. There was nothing wrong with you. There was nothing wrong with her. She just wanted you to have better.”

And still Enobaria would venture to say that her decision is the reason Clove is where she is exactly right now.

“I always thought I’d raise a victor baby, you know? If I had to have one, it would be my priority to make them into a victor. But I look at him and I can’t imagine it. I can’t imagine being so willing to watch him possibly die. Like look at him, Baria! His little nose and he holds my finger with his entire first. How could I have been so willing to just..strip that away from him?” Clove truly is clinging her infant son to her chest, unable to look anywhere but the innocence that is trapped in his face. 

“You should be so proud of yourself, Clove. He is so lucky to have you as his mother. I know I'm not your mom, but if it is worth anything, I’m proud of you, too. And I’m probably most proud that you’re twenty four and not seventeen. That was a scary year for me.” Enobaria brushes some of Clove’s hair back behind her ear, really taking a moment to take in her tired face. “Give me this baby, Clove, you need to rest.”

“It’s okay, I’ve got him, really-” Clove argues, trying to ignore the way her eyes water both from exhaustion and emotion.

“Clove. I spend a lot of my time these days holding blond babies, I have a lot of practice.” Enobaria nearly pries the solid newborn out of Clove’s grasp, with little to no fight on Clove’s side anymore. 

“I feel bad, I’m his mother, I should be the one taking care of him.” Clove insists half heartedly, as Enobaria pats her shoulder.

“Clove. You have people who want to take care of you too. Let us.”

(Two years later when Enobaria meets the much tinier, dark haired, green eyed little Sevina Hadley in her mother’ arms, she is infinitely glad that her brother came first.)

______________________________________________________

Cato’s knocked out on the couch, one of his arms and one of his legs dangling over the edge, neck bent at the worst possible angle, shirtless and using a crumbled up bath towel as a pillow. 

Clove’s awake, Atlas in one arm, pacing the three steps in front of Cato’s body in repeat, as she tries to simultaneously feed and soothe their –officially twenty three hours old– son. 

She’s in a chorus of shushes and humming of songs she can’t even identify, and using the arm that is not responsible for the safety of her son, she half heartedly drags a blanket off the back of the couch and over Cato’s body. They hadn’t meant to spend the night on the couch– exhaustion just got the absolute best of them. 

“If you eat like your dad we’re going to have some problems, buddy.” Clove mumbles to her baby, continuing her three step pace back and forth back and forth back and forth. “I won’t sleep for the next year and a half.” 

Clove quite literally almost screams when she hears a knock at the door. Not a scream of fear or anything of that sort. But more of a who the fuck is at my house at 7 am kind of scream. 

Who the fuck do they know that even knocks?

Clove is literally shuffling her feet to the door as she realizes she only has one sock on, an unzipped sweatshirt, and a baby quite literally attached to her. Not quite the way to maintain her reputation. 

Fuck it. Whoever was stupid enough to be on her porch at seven in the morning probably knew what they were getting into. 

“....you most definitely have a key!!” Clove quite literally screams out, knowing the list of who it could be is an exponentially short list. 

The babbling and gasp of “shhh no you can’t say that word!” on the other side of the door tells her exactly who it was. 

She can hear clumsy fingers trying to shove the key in the correct slot, followed by the same voice as before instructing “no no that's the bottom key!” before the door does in fact fly open.

 “Gooooood Morning sunshines!” Comes the bright ringing voice of Glimmer, standing just beyond the threshold of the door with one of the wide awake pink tutu-clad toddler girls on one hip. Her other arm dons multiple large gift bags overflowing with tissue paper, with a wheeling suitcase by her feet. Marvel looks almost identical, with the matching twin in his arms, a similar array of bags, and a suitcase of his as well. Glimmer’s clicking heels announce her entrance into the foyer, followed by the tell-tale sound of suitcase wheels on marble flooring. “Oh! Clove! Perfect! We brought brunch!”

Clove glances at the clock above the television as if she needs to check that one no, she is not in fact dreaming and two it is in fact seven in the morning. “...Brunch typically means later than seven a.m. Glimmer.” 

“Well, you can’t call it breakfast when there’s mimosas.” Marvel explains as he follows in right behind Glimmer, careful to shut the door loud enough that it startles Cato awake. Clove takes the moment to zip up Cato’s sweatshirt, still maintaining that cadence of a pace to keep the baby happy and content in her arms.

He truly must have been sleeping well, because the slamming door has him quite literally jolted awake, throwing off his precarious balance as he rolls off the couch onto the floor. “What the fuck-”

“Oh! Careful! The girls are repeating everything these days!” Glimmer warns cheerily, before she is setting all her gift bags on the ground around her. “Clove! Let me see this baby!”

“Why are you here?” Cato mumbles as he pushes himself off the floor, running an exhausted hand down his face as he tries to wake himself up more thoroughly than even hitting the floor could do. “No, let me rephrase, why are you here so early? Do the trains even run that early?”

“Don’t be silly, Cato, do you know how difficult it is to take two toddlers on the train? Well.. you’ll know soon enough but! We drove here, it took longer but, at least when Stella starts yelling at the trees only the two of us have to hear it.`` Glimmer takes the moment to drop the aforementioned toddler off in Cato’s lap before he fully has the chance to even wake up.  “And we’re here to help!” 

Clove pauses fully in her place, looking between all of them, the flurry of life and energy so bright in the morning. “What do you mean you’re here to help?”

“You moved in when Glimmer had the girls. Like literally moved in. I think we still find some of those frozen sandwiches in the back of the freezer sometimes.” Marvel explains, his voice so much softer than his wife. Marvel, unlike Glimmer and like all of the others, is far from a morning person. Aurelia, rubbing at her little eyes with her head on his shoulder, seems to agree. “And we can’t cook, but we are professionals at takeout ordering so…we wanted to help.”

“We know you have Cato’s mom and Enobaria! But, well! If we hadn’t had you two…it would have just been us. Gloss and Cash are great but! It was different. I didn’t realize how lonely It was until you guys got there.” Glimmer shuffles directly in front of Clove, her hands hovering just a few inches away from the baby. “We’re staying with Enobaria and Cash, of course! Aurelia learned this week that if she wants a snack in the middle of the night she just has to scream to wake us up. You don’t need our babies sleep schedules fucking up your baby’s sleep schedule. If he’s anything like the twins were though he’ll be up every hour and fifty eight minutes like clock work!”

“Does Enobaria know you’re staying with her?” Cato grumbles, leaning back onto the couch while Stella crawls all over him, babbling and wide awake like her mother. 

“She’ll find out soon.” Marvel shrugs, stifling a yawn as he sits on the opposite end of the couch from Cato. “Cashmere knows, I think?”

“Hiiiii Ca-yo!” Stella giggles, wrapping her little toddler arms around Cato’s neck and holding on for her life.

“Hey, kiddo.” Cato pats the top of her head gently, really only half awake. “Is  it nap time yet?”

Clove watches the way Glimmer’s hands just hover over hers, and offers her a tired, but genuine smile. “...do you want to hold him, Glim?”

“Very, very much!” Glimmer nods enthusiastically, holding out her hands to take the baby from her closest friend. She audibly gasps when he is placed in the crook of her arm. “Clove! He’s so big!”

“Eight and a half pounds, actually.” Cato chimes in, as Marvel’s head absolutely whips to face him.

“Are you serious? He’s fucking huge, Clove, how can you even walk?” Marvel gapes, as he earns an outright glare from his wife over the choice of his language. 

“Very, very carefully.” Clove jokes, taking the baby free opportunity to lower herself to the recliner where she instantly pulls her knees to her chest to get comfortable. 

“...I had two babies. At the same time. He is almost bigger than them combined Clove! That’s insane!” Glimmer remarks in nothing short of awe, naturally continuing to sway him back and forth the way she had done countless times with her own children. “...no, seriously, he’s almost as big as my girls combined.”

“Yeah, well, blame his father.” Clove offers warmly, not even a hint of malice in her tone. “He got everything else from him too.” “Seriously, you aren’t kidding. Maybe he inherited the Clove Obsession gene.” Glimmer smiles down at the baby, taking his little hand into her own and grinning as he wraps his hand around her thumb. 

“Are you disappointed, Glimmer?” Clove asks softly, propping her head up in the palm of her hand.

“About what?” Glimmer draws her attention back from the weight of the boy in her arms to address her friend. 

“You know, that he’s a boy?” 

“No. Not at all. How could I be? I mean, just look at him, Clove! Oh, and we brought presents! They’re mostly for you, but I just finished his sweater with his name on the ride over.” Glimmer gracefully leans down, slipping one hand through the laces of one of the bags before handing it to Clove. “It’s meant to be kind of oversized, but I don’t know now that I've seen him..”

“What do you mean you brought presents for me?” Clove raises a dark eyebrow, but shifts through the bag anyway. She pulls out the aforementioned sweater, little and blue, with Atlas hand stitched across the front in the pale yellow yarn. “This is beautiful, Glimmer, thank you..

“...you just had a baby, Clove. You deserve all the presents. It’s just stuff that’s nice to have! Those really soft button down pajamas, and those slippers you really liked at my house, and I think there’s things to hold your hair back because you may not think a baby has a good grip but wait until the middle of the night when he figures out what pulling it does!” Glimmer bounces Atlas just slightly, watching his eyes continue to flutter open and shut with her movement. “I didn’t have anyone to teach me how to be a mother. And that’s not what I'm here to do. I just..hope to make it easier! You aren’t on your own, you’ve got people who want to help you, Clove. That’s all. And presents are allllways nice.”

“You’re going to make me cry, fuck, Glimmer.” Clove warns, running her hands over each of the items Glimmer listed as she takes them out one at a time. Not only had she taken the time to get her gifts..she had clearly paid attention to the kind of things no one teaches you about if you don’t have a mother anymore yourself.

“Oh for the love of god please don’t teach the girls that word, they’re going to learn how to use it in context too!” Glimmer warns, but it's far too late as the soft baby voice of Aurelia calls out to her. 

“...mama?”

“Yes, angel girl?” 

“Bee-bee?” 

“You want to see the baby, honey?” Glimmer offers, glancing over at Clove first. “Ask Auntie Clove if it’s okay.”

“Bee-Bee, Co?” Aurelia directs, pointing at Glimmer’s arms while she looks in Clove’s direction. “Peeeeas, Co?” She flutters her long eyelashes, the sweetest little pout forming on her baby lips.

“Sure, you can see the baby. Maybe Uncle Cato can help-” Clove begins, but when she glances over at her husband she can see he has since lulled back to sleep, Stella still happily babbling at him regardless. 

“Ca-yo seeeeepin, Co.” Stella tells her, bringing a little finger to her lips in a gesture Clove can only assume is being told to be quiet. 

“Did your child just shush me?” Clove feigns offense, but rolls over to the other side of the chair so that she can watch more fully. “Wake him up Stella, tell him it’s baby time.”

“Cayooooooo, wake uuuuuuuuup.” Stella practically sings in his face, little hands coming to pat his face gently at first then not so much. “Cayooooooo”

“Huh, what, i’m up what's going on-” Cato’s eyes fly open, looking back and forth somewhat frantically again. 

“Bee-bee.” Stella explains, the little proud smile on her face demonstrating her joy at successfully completing her task. 

“Okay, why don’t you both sit right here,” Glimmer instructs the toddlers to crawl to the middle couch cushion, where she gently pushes them right up against each other. “Cato’s going to hold his head, okay girlies? Just to help!” 

Cato, for what it’s worth, does get the memo, and leans an overly long arm down to support Atlas’s little head and shoulders (and entire upper body, really), as Glimmer gently lays the baby out across both the twins' laps. 

“Hiiiiiii bee-bee!” Aurelia, who is more responsible for the lower half of his body, coos with equal excitement and gentleness. One pointer finger comes out to gently touch at his cheek, pressing ever so slightly, almost stroking his face in a way she could have only ever learned from the comforting touches of her own parents. 

“...heavy.” Stella whines, lulling her head back against the couch cushion. She gives a dramatic sigh, but keeps her own hands gently patting his chest. “Heavyyyyy.”

“Why is that what everyone says, he isn’t that big?” Cato defends with a bemused grin, reaching down with his other hair to brush Stella’s hair out of her eyes. “You’re a drama queen like your mother.”

It’s crazy, really. Somehow Atlas looks massive compared to the tiny twin one and half year olds, and yet at the same time makes the girls look like they themselves are practically teenagers with how old they look in comparison. 

There was never a time in any of their lives where they would have believed they’d be exactly where they are right now in this moment, watching their children (with each other, nonetheless) be held by one another. 

There is a shared silence of appreciation amongst the adult victors in the room. The words don’t need to be said, but the shared looks from Cato to Glimmer, from Clove to Marvel, and from the couples themselves say everything that needs to be said. 

These are three children who in another life would have been stripped of everything and sent to the games, without a second thought, if for no other reason than who their parents are. It would have been a question of when, not if, and the thought of it would have consumed and destroyed the four of them.

The twins simply never would have existed in that life– Glimmer wouldn’t have allowed it. 

Atlas would have, Clove and Cato know that much, but they don’t think they would have dared to allow themselves to love him as much as they already do a mere day into his life. 

This is not that life, though. 

In this life Stella will not have her hair dyed before she can spell her name, she will not be sold as a little star from the time she can walk. Aurelia will not be stripped of the innocent way she speaks to her fellow babies, her kindness will not be replaced with manipulation and a hundred and one ways to kill a man. Atlas will not be handed a weapon before he can walk, he will not be told that the way he immediately gravitates towards his mother’s arms as young as a toddler is a show of weakness that must be ceased.

They will not know Marvel for killing a twelve year old girl with a spear to her chest, nor the years of nightmares that followed Snow’s torture of him. They will not know Glimmer for stripping down in a desperate attempt for survival, they will not know of her exploitation as a result. They will not know Cato for dismembering a boy in the final two, in his last ditch attempt to get home (and home, specifically, to Clove).  They will not know Clove for skinning a man alive in the Quarter Quell, or the way she could gut her fellow tributes like an animal for slaughter.

They do not know their victor parents for who they were. Victors. All of those things, those memories, those..actions– lead them to where they are now. Children who otherwise would not have existed if not for the lives, training, and survival of their parents.

They know them for who they are now. 

Just their parents.

And aunts. And uncles. And cousins. 

“It’s crazy, isn’t it?” Clove interrupts their shared awe, siting herself more upright so she can join the six of them on that side of the room. 

“What is?” Cato muses, gently taking the opportunity to pull Atlas into his own arm more fully, already craving the feeling of his child back in his arms. 

“One day you’re learning how to hunt children and the next you’re holding the son you should never have even been alive to have.”

[clatoera]

Picket Fence is Sharp as Knives Chapter 7: They Got No Idea About Me And You

Heyyyy Besties. Long time no see. March was rough. It's been rough. But tell a friend to tell a friend she's baaack.

Title from t swift Dress. I almost used a chappell roan lyric but I have committed so hard to the t swift bit I couldnt do it.

ao3

masterpost

It is the long awaited cashbaria chapter, featuring a scene of them during the 74th games and then a post war follow up of them! I specifically need to mention and notice my friends @bodyelectric77my go to cashbaria queen and @kentwells who has had MANY many conversations about these things with me. They write the Cashbaria that I read so please check them both out!!! I don't think @ohhowwehavefallen even uses tumblr anymore but at this point she gets tagged in any post I make ever so..hello bestie.

I am not a cashbaria writer and I hope I did them justice in this fic. It was a LOT of fun. I had wanted to get it up earlier this week for Sapphic Visibility day along with @bodyelectric77 because it's funny they have similar vibes of sapphics being blatantly visible but the people closest to them being absolutely oblivious. Thank you my friend, you're incredible, your writing inspires me.

Alright. Lets rock this bitch.

“Mmm…think they’ve noticed yet?”  

As the voice comes from behind her, Enobaria can’t help the coy smile that etches it’s way on to her face. She doesn’t even need to turn to face the source, as she is hit with the combined smell of vanilla and honey and something floral that is just uniquely Cashmere. If the scent alone weren’t enough, the flurry of blonde curls that leak over her upper arm as a familiar face rests on her shoulder, with lithe hands wrapping around her waist would be the dead giveaway that it is her girlfriend. 

Well, her girlfriend, or someone with a very creative death wish.

“Noticed what? That they’re trying to fit four people on a couch made to fit two?” Enobaria muses, bringing her hand up to rest her fingertips along Cashmere’s cheek bone. “I know Cato thinks he needs to live inside of Clove, but it’s a little nauseating to watch.”

It isn’t even Enobaria’s style, this blatant display of hands-on skin and kisses on cheeks, but it wasn’t like she was ashamed of such. It was dangerous, to give the president any further leverage to dangle above either of them. It wasn’t public and it wasn’t secret, but a third undefinable thing. The kind of thing that was open to their safest friends—Brutus, Gloss, Finnick, Johanna and such—and on a need-to-know basis with all the others.  That group of safest friends would of course include Cato and Clove, if they ever figured it out that is.

Still. They are mostly alone, doing what District Two called “mentor mentoring” but what Enobaria and Brutus so affectionately call babysitting. It was just the right time of day, when the action died down, and victors were either slipping off to self soothe (medicate) or prepare for whatever the evening presented in terms of sponsors and clientele. 

And honestly, if anyone needed babysitting to ensure they actually learned how to mentor, it was Cato and Clove.

“They’re just excited to be together!” Cashmere assured, settling into the space between Enobaria and the bar, wrapping her other arm around her to pull her fully into a hug from behind her. “They’re kids, they’re just having fun. You knowwhat I’m talking about them noticing, ‘Baria. Have they noticed this.” To emphasize, she kisses along her jawline, but keeps her eyeline trained on the four young victors loudly taunting each other on the couch. If she didn’t know any better, she would have thought they were just normal teenagers, up too late and laughing loud enough that their parents would be down to yell at them at any minute. 

Unfortunately, they were not normal kids, and they were barely raised by their parents at all. They were raised by combinations of victors, trainers, and violence in various combinations. 

The four of them, practically on top of each other, mocking other teenagers as they screamed on television, was somehow as close to normal as they were ever going to be. 

Enobaria lets out a little sigh as she leans into Cashmere’s affection, before she gives a little shake of her head. “I mean it. It’s like they don’t notice anyone but each other. They probably don’t even realize they aren’t alone on the couch.”

“And they were going to go into the games together? That would have been a real PR disaster for District Two, you know.” Cashmere teases, before she slips around from behind Enobaria to the side of her, before slipping one of her legs on top of the other woman’s knees and nearly sitting right in her lap. 

“You’re telling me. It would have been an absolute nightmare. We used to think they were this perfect pair, they just understood each other so well. Yeah, it could have been hard when it came down to the final two but nothing they couldn’t handle. But then…you know, they thought they were so good at sneaking around, but they’re fucking idiots. They didn’t talk to anyone else. One was always missing from their bed. They were great together, apparently a little too great. It was a liability to send them in together. I know I was afraid of what we would pull out of that arena in whichever won.” Enobaria took the opportunity to be the one holding Cashmere now, resting her head against the blonde’s. “Sometimes I wish we had done it, though. He’s fucking infuriating. It’s gross to watch them.”

“Oh, you don’t mean that, Enobaria. They’re cute together. They’re happy, and they get to be openly happy. Unlike the rest of us. I’d kill for that. So would Finnick…and Glimmer too.”

“They don’t even know how lucky they are.” It does not need to be said what luck Enobaria was referring to. By some miracle there was never any demand for the two of them, no clients to be at the beck and call of. It was probably becauseof each other, and for that, Enobaria really was thankful for their mutual survival. 

That was not something she was prepared to explain to Clove quite yet. 

“You busy tonight?” Enobaria slides in, intentionally sliding in vague phrasing due to the risk of ever listening walls.

She feels Cashmere physically sag in her arms, practically collapsing the lines of her body to press flush against her. “The usual. The gamemakers get bored at this point in the games until things spice up.”

Enobaria tenses at the phrasing. It was clear what (and more importantly, who) was going to be spicing things up for the gamemakers tonight. She gently scratches her nails over the pale forearms she holds in her hands, drawing little swirling patterns with the very tip of her index finger. “Gloss and Glimmer too?”

“Gloss is with Finnick. Glimmer’s got the fullest schedule of all of us tonight.” Cashmere feels the coolness in her voice at the statement, and if someone didn’t know her, they may even mistake it for jealousy over her little sister’s popularity. Little did they know the layer of self-loathing that overtook Cashmere and Gloss both, anytime the schedule of Glimmer’s nightly roster of abusers was sent over.

“What’s going on with your sister and Marbles up there?” Enobaria took the opportunity to ask, cocking her head just slightly as she watches the two victors opposite Cato and Clove, and from where she’s standing, Glimmer may as well be curled up in the lap of her own fellow District One victor. “It’s like career victor inbreeding these days.  Cato and Clove…Shimmer and Sparkles up there…Finnick and crazy Cresta…”

“I’m not sure. She never told us something was happening with them. They’ve been friends for a long time. He’s sweet to her. She hasn’t told me anything specific, though, and I’m sure she would if they were together.” Cash sticks her hand out blindly to the side, grabbing the glass off the bar that Enobaria had been drinking before Cashmere slid into her arms. It’s always easier, to deal with those bored clients, with a little bit of a sedative in her system. She doesn’t even get more than a sip before she shutters, harshly reminded that District Two does not believe in mixers. Instead, she taunts Enobaria gently, “Would we be part of Victor inbreeding then, Baria?” 

“Absolutely not. We can’t actually accidentally breed. Besides. We’re not from the same district, we’re adding diversity to the Victor gene pool.” Enobaria teases in response but raises a playful eyebrow. “You think Glimmer would just...tell you? Remind me again how she found out about us?”

“Oh, Enobaria that’s not important- “

“No, I like to hear it.”

Cashmere’s eyeroll was nearly audible as she let out an annoyed sigh. “She noticed I changed my nail shape for the first time in ten years.”

“And why did you change your nails?”

Enobaria grins, watching the flush actually flood Cashmere’s neck and trail up to her face. “You know why, you aren’t being funny!”

“I know. I just like how you get all flustered about it.” Enobaria squeezes her arm playfully, before she leans up to kiss right under her ear. “And I appreciate the consideration.”

“Enobaria!” Cashmere huffs, twisting in her arms before crossing her own over her chest. “So, they didn’t notice youdon’t have your little razor nails?”

“Baby, I don’t think Clove knows you can even paint nails, let alone notices the shape.”

“You practically raised her. I remember you coming to the Capitol that one weekend when we were young and asking me how to teach her how to throw, oh it was so cute, Baria. She knows you so well, she has to notice something!” At the mention of them, nearly ten years ago, she wriggles back into Enobaria’s embrace warmly. “That’s how I knew there was some love in that scary District Two Victor shell, the notorious Enobaria asking how to teach a little girl the proper technique. Not just a little girl at training, but one you actually cared about!”

“Exactly. I spent the most time with her. You’ve been part of my life almost as long as she’d be able to remember. I’ve always been just like this.” Enobaria sighs, before she brings her hand up to run through the very end of Cash’s curls. “I actually don’t think she’s ever once considered I may actually like…yeah. I don’t think that’s crossed her mind.” 

“Mmhmm, were you kissing pretty blonde girls in your lap back in District Two?” Cash teases, wrapping an arm around her girlfriend’s shoulders, beyond testing the limits of how far she could go before any of those damn kids noticed. “Cato seems like he knew his way around the girls his age, you mean he never even made a comment about it?”

“Cash, you are literally on top of me, and he hasn’t noticed. He isn’t the most observant career boy you’ll ever meet. He actually was so obsessed with Clove, he wasn’t that hard to keep off other girls. I just wanted to keep him off of— and out of—Clove. Besides. I don’t think he knows that girls...can be with girls. That might break his fragile little brain.”

Cashmere throws her head back in a genuine laugh that should have pulled the attention of the whole room. Somehow, the four of them are so in their own little word they don’t even bat an eye. 

Thank God all four of them weren’t in the games together. They’d never pay enough attention to their surroundings for any single one of them to come out a winner.

“What do you mean? He doesn’t know girls can like girls?” 

“His only two modes are kill and Clove. We’re lucky he remembers to breathe. Or unlucky, depending on the day.”

“Are you going to tell them then?” Cash teases. It’s evident that Enobaria isn’t hiding anything from Clove. They are truly just not observant enough to notice anything but themselves.

As if to emphasize they are truly paying no attention to the girls in the back of the room, Clove can be heard making some snide remark as she gets off of Cato’s lap, reaching down into the fruit bowl on the glass coffee table in front of them. At the same time, they watch as Glimmer shifts to the side so Marvel climbs out from under her. He walks to one end of the room before Clove takes her hand full of something they cannot yet identify to the other. 

Enobaria and Cashmere watching in a shared sense of amusement and confusion as Clove quite literally starts throwing, with unyielding precision, something small directly into Marvel’s mouth. 

“Are those...?” Cashmere muses, tilting her head in bemusement, an inquisitive expression on her face. 

“I think they’re grapes?” Enobaria confirms.

Enobaria laughs, actually openly laughs, when Marvel lets out a sharp yelp as he gets absolutely drilled in the eye by a little green fruit. 

“Clove! What the hell, I thought you don’t miss!” Marvel whines, bringing his hand to cover his stinging left eye. 

“I don’t.” Clove reminds with a smug smirk on her face.  

Cashmere audibly sighs, burying her face in the lengths of Enobaria’s hair at her neck. “…you know what, on second thought, maybe they should figure it out themselves.” 

______________________________________________________________________

There are approximately fifty steps between Clove’s front door and Enobaria’s. Forty-four if you walked fast, sixty if you took your time. It’s not a hard path to cross, even in a District Two blizzard.

It is a miserable trek, however, when someone else’s child is screaming at you the entire walk.

“I know, I know, you miss your mother that we just saw fifteen seconds ago.” Enobaria mumbles, practically slamming her front door shut behind her the second she is fully inside. The heartbroken mumbles of ‘mama’ coming from the one-year-old, with his teary blue eyes staring at the door like his mother would walk in and rescue him at any moment, give Enobaria a sense of Déjà vu she wishes all too well she didn’t know how to place.  For all he looked like his father—and by god Cato may as well have cloned himself— there evidently was some of his mother in him, too. “I’m not going to steal you forever kid, trust me. I know you’d live inside her if you could, but unfortunately for you so would your dad.”

She kicks her shoes off, fully intending to lay on the couch for the next few hours, hoping to lull the boy to sleep until Clove would be back to collect him after…wherever the hell they were going. 

She had tried to pay attention to Clove’s plans for the night. It isn’t her fault that Clove made such a clingy little thing that cried any time he was out of her arms.

“Alright, buddy, lets just stop with the sad eyes, if you go to sleep, she’ll be back when you wake up—” When she makes that promise of a returning mother, she is at least sure a liar will not be made of her this time.

As soon as Enobaria goes to sit with him, she hears some sort of chatter elsewhere in the house. The sound of a hairdryer pairs with the voices, and immediately she knows Cash must be singing to herself or something as she does her hair.

“Oh, Aunt Cash will be so excited to see you.” She is drawn to the sound she shifts him from her shoulder to lower on her hip, his endless babbles of mama nearly blending into the background now. 

As soon as she reaches the top of her stairs, she hooks the right to the bedroom, as the sound of the dryer gets louder and louder. Smiling to herself, she nudges the door open with her foot. “Hey baby, I didn’t know you were coming home yet, I brought—”

Enobaria is stunned to silence as she is greeted by not one, not two, but three blonde girls sitting on the bathroom floor looking up at her. The baby, too, even stops his incessant babbling to stare at Cashmere and the girls.

Cash sits, with her back to the bathtub, hair dryer in her hand, and a little blonde toddler sitting cross legged on each of her knees. She flicks the dryer off with a wide smile on her face, looking up at Enobaria. 

One of the twins steals the first greeting, big green eyes blinking up at her and the sweetest little smile on her face when she sees her. She pushes off of Cashmere’s knee, to close the distance between herself and her other aunt. “Hiiiiii Aun-ie Baria! We’re visit-in your house!!” 

Enobaria softens, leaning down to scoop up the little girl with her free arm. It had become surprisingly easy to tell the twins apart once they got a little bigger, and from personality alone she knew who she was talking to at any time.

 “Hello Miss Stella,” It was always a little shocking, claiming Cashmere’s nieces as her own, and it was almost unsettling at times how much they looked like they could be Cashmere’s girls. Still, they’re sweet kids and they’re cute as hell. It is shockingly easy to love them. “How did you end up here in our other house! It’s a long way from your house…”

“Uh you told me that we were babysitting today, Enobaria.” Cashmere reminds her as if it is obvious. She shifts Aurelia to sit between her legs as she reaches over and grabs a curling iron off the tile floor beside her. 

“Yeah, Cash, I was watching him.” Enobaria nods her head towards the little blond boy, who’s resolved to resting his head on her shoulder. At least he had finally stopped crying—

and hey, she gets it, she likes to look at Cash too. “You just... brought the girls on the train and didn’t think to like... mention that?” 

“Oh, it’s not a big deal! They were excited to come see our other house, huh sunshine?” Cash waves off, before she brushes through her niece’s long baby soft hair with her fingers one time before she takes the curling iron to a small section. Aurelia sits so uncharacteristically still for a two and a half year old, clearly well trained on how to have her hair done. 

“How did you even end up with them today?” Enobaria decides her best course of action is to just join Cashmere on the floor, and kicks the door shut behind her. She presses against the wood with her back, sliding down while still holding both the toddlers in her arms without missing a beat. “aren’t they kind of little for your to be heating up their hair like that?”

“It’s the second Wednesday of the month!” She explains as if that means anything, carefully placing the hot iron out of reach before reaching for a handful of pink ribbon which she ties around the little half ponytail she makes on her niece’s head. “Don’t be silly honey, I used heat protectant on it! They like to feel pretty!”

“Does that mean something to me that it’s second Wednesday?” 

“It’s nail day, Enobaria. Second and Fourth Wednesdays are nail days. Stella, show Auntie Baria your nails!” Cashmere instructs, and Stella does stick out her little hand towards Enobaria’s face. Enobaria, to her credit, does give an appreciative glance at the incredibly tiny pink nails. “I think they’re all doing something together, Glim said she’ll be in Two anyway to pick them up tonight. Like I said, I thought we were already babysitting them, and Glimmer didn’t correct me so...”

Aurelia is the one who pushes off of Cash next, little blonde curls bouncing as she half runs across the room. She settles herself between the two children Enobaria already holds, reaching out her own little pink nails to grab the baby’s hand. “Hiiii baby.”

“Look at you, covered in career babies.” Cash teases, her hand over her heart playfully. “Come here Stells, it’s your turn.” She cocks her head as Stella does as she’s asked, and Aurelia shifts to take her place with Enobaria. “How old is he? Is he one yet?”

“Yeah, well, remember when I called it Career Victor inbreeding? This is what I meant.” Enobaria teases playfully, glancing down at the baby who was finally, somehow, done with his crying. Now, he just stared at the twins with wide blue eyes, fascinated by the shimmering gold ribbons on the middle of their dresses. “Mmm… he’ll be one I think next month. It’s soon.”

“He’s just so freaking big. He’s like... twin sized and they’re nearly three.” She mumbles, taking a few moments just to hold Stella in her lap rather than go straight for her hair.  “Oh, come on, Enobaria, at least they’re cute! They’re so worth it. And we get to give them back at the end of the day, that’s the best part.”

“Of course he’s huge, his dad is a mammoth.” Enobaria reminds, gently prying his hands off of Aurelia’s tulle skirt that he had managed to lean forward to grab. “They are pretty cute kids; I’ll give them that. Even if this one looks like his dad.”

“Poor Clove, he’s practically bigger than her. That had to hurt...” Cashmere mumbles, going back to her task of brushing through Stella’s soft hair. 

“….Cash?”

“Yeah, baby?” She replies absently, spritzing Stella’s hair before going in with the curling iron. 

“…we are watching all the kids. All their parents are alone right now.”

“Yeah, and? I think they were doing something tonight?”

“Yeah, probably each other!” Enobaria nearly hisses.

“Oh, relax Enobaria! They aren’t doing that! Aren’t they all together?”

Enobaria half whispers, glancing between the two little blond kids she held and the one in Cashmere’s lap. “They won’t be together all night. We are not watching a fourth one, Cash. I draw the line at a fourth. How did we end up watching three children who do not belong to us?” 

Cashmere tries to stifle her giggle, failing miserably as she reminds her, “we didn’t pay enough attention when babysitting their parents.”

[clatoera]

Picket Fence is Sharp as Knives Chapter 3: All I know, Is this could either break my heart (Part 1)

Heyyyy besties. Sorry this has been a minute. My future is crashing in on my very fast and i'm falling apart. Originally this was a much longer chapter, but I realized this could stand alone and gave me time to really dig in on part two which features Cashmere and Enobaria and Gloss and others I don't use as much so I want time to be sure I do them justice and this is to tie you over until then :)

Title from tswift Electric Heart bc of course it is.

AO3

Masterpost

Shoutout to the usual besties but especially @kentwells who actually inspired this whole arc and @bodyelectric77 who said yes split it and is also my go to enobaria/cashmere source who I will heavily be consulting on part two.

Love you all thank you as usual, see you soon for pt 2!

They should be used to it by now. Expect it, even. 

They should be used to the fact that their home is the place of refuge, of meal times, of assembly for their small group of friends for an impromptu gathering. For two adults who were once children whose only real friend was the other, it should remind them of how far they have come. The fact they even have people who want  to barge in to their kitchen unannounced should make them feel all warm and fuzzy inside. 

And you know, maybe that would be the case if absolutely anyone ever asked if it was a good time.

Cato and Clove are probably not people who you should show up on unannounced, considering Clove sleeps with a knife in arms reach and Cato sleeps with Clove. 

They absolutely should not be shocked, when Glimmer absolutely flies through their front door for the second time in a week, just as distressed and disheveled as the first. 

Maybe, actually, even more so. 

“This is all your fault.” Glimmer actually screams, wasting no time on pleasantries as she stomps her way up the stairs and to their bedroom, throwing her shoes off unceremoniously as she confronts the couple in their own bed.

“Good morning to you too, Glimmer. Sure you can come over, Glimmer. Sure, we absolutely weren’t in the middle of anything, Glimmer. Yes Glimmer, we are absolutely awake and ready to hangout with you.” Clove greets, not even lifting her head to glance at her friend who so casually entered her home apparently only to lose her mind at them. She wraps her arms tighter around Cato’s neck and stifles a yawn into his shoulder, having been so cruelly pulled out of her sleep by Glimmer’s intrusion and following tantrum.

“We really need to change those locks..” Cato mumbles into her hair, before he lifts his head to rest his chin atop Clove’s head. He brings up a hand to rub his finger tips over his eyes, willing himself to be more alert in light of whatever accusation Glimmer had come to throw their way. ‘Nice to see you too, Glimmer.”

“What exactly is our fault,” Clove mumbles, stretching one arm out above her head, before stretching it down to grab the comforter and bring it to snuggle her face into. “And what is so important that you decided to break into our bedroom over it.”

There is a hesitation, a heavy and shaking breath that escapes her before she loses all semblance of composure (of which there was not much) before she truly and fully bursts into hysterical sobs. “Everything was going so well, so so well, and now it’s ruined. I’ve gone and ruined everything good and ruined my life and..and.. and–” She sits on the edge of their bed without an invitation, fiddling with the hem at her shirt with a desperate attempt to find anything to focus her nervous hands and attention on. “I’ve ruined everything.”

“Glimmer. Use your words. Actual sentences, preferably.” Cato groans, glancing over at the bedside clock. “Did you come here at…ten in the morning to wail at us like a banshee? Come on Glim at least wait until afternoon to do that–”

“I’m pregnant,” comes out in a clipped voice, Glimmer unable to look anywhere but her own hands that itch to dig into the skin of her arms, that yearn to break the skin and watch rivulets of red wash away some of her anxieties with them. “And it’s your fault.”

Clove’s blood runs absolutely cold, and as she feels Cato’s chest tense underneath her, she knows he is just as taken back. Eyes that were once fighting sleep go wide, and Clove finds herself pushed to a seated position before she even realizes she has control of her body. She feels her heart catch in her chest, as if her own heart were trying to catch it’s breath and calm down. “What do…when..who…are you absolutely sure?”

At the same time Cato slowly rises himself, narrowing his eyes as he focuses in on the woman– barely more than a girl, really, and looking even younger as she curls herself up– at the foot of his bed. “How is that our fault.”

“It’s your fault because it was your stupid wedding and your stupid champagne and your stupid cake and your stupid speeches and that stupid stupid suit and that look on his face and–” Glimmer blubbers out, shaking her head rapidly as if she can will this all to be no more than a terrible dream. “You two did this to me.”

“I don’t know how drunk you were, Glimmer, but I can assure you we did not participate in ANY activities that could lead to this with you present.” Cato put his hands up in defense, glancing more intently over at his wife to gauge her response, because such wild accusations could go one of two ways when it came to Clove. 

“I obviously did not have sex with you two, genius.” Glimmer snaps back at him, finally looking up to see them. Dark circles under puffy red eyes betray exhaustion and quite substantial crying– definitely the entire train ride to two if not longer. She’s got crinkly hair falling in her eyes, and when they look long enough they can see that the sweatshirt she wears as a dress is most certainly not hers at all.  Paired with the obscured black running shorts underneath, it is somehow the most exhausted either of them have ever seen her, which is quite the feat when considering her and Cato’s time together in hell- okay, District 13. 

Clove is still frozen, unblinking, unmoving as the gravity of Glimmer’s words settle in her chest. It aches in a way she cannot understand. Deep down she wonders if it is because of her own mother. Was this how that poor, unsuspecting teenage girl had felt? For a moment Clove can picture her own young mother, crying that her life was ruined by Clove’s unintentional existence, and she has to bring herself back to the hard reality infront of her before she thinks too deeply on that front. 

“Are you sure?” Clove almost moves closer, but hesitation keeps her firmly planted beside Cato, just in case an unsuspected touch would send Glimmer spiraling further and further into her despair. “Is Marvel…”

“Of course I’m sure. Trust me I checked over and over and over and- seven times.  I couldn’t make this up if I tried.” Glimmer digs the heel of her hands into her eyes, pressing in with just enough pressure to make the world dark. “Of course he is, Clove. And now everything is ruined, things were so good.. We were getting back together and now- now it’s all ruined.”

“Was he mad? What did he say to you Glimmer, I swear-” Cato raised a blonde eyebrow, pushing the sheets off his legs as he swings his feet to the ground. “I can go beat the hell out of him right now Glimmer, he has no right to be pissed–”

“No! No. I…he doesn’t know. He can’t know. I can’t tell him.” Her eyes go somehow even wider, welling with even more tears as she shakes her head rapidly back and forth, and she reaches forward to grab Clove’s hands as if she were going to up and run to One on her own. 

“What the fuck do you mean you can’t tell him. You have to tell him.” Cato nearly snaps at her, the signature Cato Hadley aggression a hard 180 from the way he was willing to literally kill for her just moments prior. He still pushes himself to his feet to begin grabbing scraps of clothing off the floor and pulling them together in a make shift outfit. “It’s his right to know, it’s his kid. If you aren’t going to tell him I sure as fuck will–”

“Cato…” Clove pleads, reaching out and grabbing him by the hand as he shuffles around their bedroom. She stills him, calms him with just the grasp of her hand, with her fingers threaded through his. She’s the only person in the world who will grab him in the middle of his rage, and she is the only person in the world who can pull him out of it. Despite her choosing to stop the impending rampage, she does vocalize her agreement. “He is right, Glimmer. He needs to know.”

“No! He’ll hate me again–”

“No he won’t, Glimmer. He absolutely will not hate you, not over anything, but especially not over this.” Clove tries, but Glimmer has already curled on her side, rolled into a ball at the foot of the bed like a dog. “What did your sister say?”

“She doesn’t know, either. I went to see her yesterday when I found out but she wasn’t home and I didn’t want to just let myself into Enobaria’s house because she kind of scares me still and so I just stayed home but I can’t stop crying and I cried all night and–” Glimmer throws herself face first into the mattress, but even still the thick layer of mattress barely muffles her cries. If they didn’t know any better they’d think she was being tortured– and maybe emotionally she was. “Everything was starting to be good again.”

“Cato is going to go get your sister.” Clove instructs, and the glare he shoots in her direction tells her he may be going to get a lot more than just Cashmere. “Don’t.” She mouths, as if she can read his mind and his plan to go all the way to One. “She’s right across the street, he will be right back with Cashmere and she’ll tell you the same thing! He isn’t afraid of Enobaria.”

“Depends on the day.” Cato glances between Glimmer and Clove, and the look of disapproval written all across his sharp features tells Clove this fight is far, far from over. “Fine. I’ll go get Enobaria and her sweater–”

“Cato!”

“I’m going, I’m going.” 

“And don’t you dare tell them whats going on, Cato.”

When Cato slips out the bedroom door, Clove waits until she hears the front door both opening and closing to signal he’s left. She reaches down and pulls some of Glimmer’s blonde hair that is stuck to her tear slicked cheek and pushes it out of her face and behind her ear so she could actually see her as they speak. 

“Now, Glimmer.” Clove starts, her voice somewhere between her normal volume and a whisper, almost soothing in nature. “Your life isn’t ruined. I thought you wanted this..”

“I was just so stupid, Clove. I thought, after all the things they gave me and all the times– I didn’t think I could get pregnant. I didn’t think I had to worry.” Glimmer lifts her head weakly, resting her forehead on Clove’s knee, grateful when she does not push her off. “I used to want to when I was little! When I didn’t know the world was horrible and the things men do. I don’t..I can’t put someone through this! And things were going so so good the last few weeks! And now..he’s going to think I trapped him or something.”

“He will absolutely not think that, Glimmer. He’s good. He’s kind. He absolutely adores you. I’d go as far as to say he is absolutely in love with you. You have to tell him.” Clove reiterates, gently pushing her hair back off her face and behind her ear as they spoke. “I…know it’s very scary Glimmer. After everything. But the world is different. There's no more victors, no more games..it would never have to go through what you did. If that’s what this is about…wasn’t that the whole point of everything we went through? You know, a better life for the future, and all that?”

“You can’t know that, Clove! I’d never forgive myself for having a baby only to let her go through this-“

“But it won’t go through what happened to you and Gloss and Cashmere and Finnick. Or what happened to me and Marvel. They’re going to be safe, Glimmer. Your kid will be safe.” Clove promises, and though she can’t guarantee it, wasn’t that the literal point of all the shit they went through? The point of that entire war? “You thought you couldn’t have them, and here you are. He’s a good guy, and you live in a world where you won’t have to send it to be a Victor. All in all Glimmer…I’d say it’s not a life ruiner at all.”

Another round of sobs rack Glimmer’s body, as if another wave of immense grief has racked through her thin frame. “What if it’s a boy, I can’t have a boy.”

Clove sighs, and leans back to support her body on her hands. “You can’t change that, Glimmer, you don’t get to decide–”

“I have had to share my body with so so so many boys and men, Clove, almost never my choice. I can’t have to do this–”

“You don’t get to decide. That’s a risk you have to take, if you want to have a kid. Thats a risk you’d have to take no matter when, I guess if, you got pregnant again. It’s a risk you take and you can’t choose–”

“I didn’t ask for this! I can’t have to share my body with a boy again, I just can’t.” Glimmer sounds as if she is begging, begging a girl who can not help her nor change the fate that is already decided.

Clove brings her hand down to Glimmer’s cheek, turning her face up so that she had no choice but to meet her eyes. There was an ache she herself couldn’t place, and her voice betrayed it with the slightest waver as she spoke.  “It wouldn’t be a random boy, Glim. He’d be yours. He’d be your baby, You would get to be his mom. And you could make absolute sure that he turns out good and kind and loving– and he has a really good dad. There are good men in the world, too. Who would never do what was done to you. Cato, and Marvel, and your brother…You can’t just…You can’t not love him because of the crime of being a boy. He didn’t choose it. It isn’t your kid’s fault that they exist, you have to love them. If you have a baby you have to love it, please, Glimmer, you have to. ” 

It feels like something in her own mind snaps, the metaphorical levee breaking, and Clove finds herself silent and looking away to avoid Glimmer’s green eyes piercing into her from below. 

Glimmer rolls from her side to her back, tears now streaming back towards her ears instead of down her cheeks towards her lips. “Clove? Are you okay?”

“I can’t help but wonder if my mom said I ruined her life, too.” Clove admits quietly, looking off into anywhere but Glimmer on her thigh. “Because I did. I definitely did. And everyone always told me she wanted me and she loved me but, no fifteen year old wanted to give up a year of training for a kid. My grandmother always told me I ruined my mom’s life and I just wonder if she thought I did, too.”

“Oh…no, Clove, there’s no way she didn’t want you, we’ve all heard about her...”

“Even if she did…she died. She died and then noone wanted me, Glimmer. So I know what it is like to be unwanted and unloved and know it and thats why I am just begging that if you decide to have this kid, Glimmer, that you love it. And you want it. And you never let her or him feel otherwise because it is really really really hard to be a kid that is unwanted. Don’t tell your kid they ruined your life. Please don’t have a baby you do not want.”  Clove actually pleads, glancing up at the ceiling and not daring to look at Glimmer, even when she feels a hand slipping into her own. 

“I’m sorry, Clove. I didn’t…I didn’t mean that it ruined my life. I am the one who ruined everything. I do want it Clove. Of course I do. And of course I will love it because it’s mine. I didn’t..I do want it. I promise, I didn’t mean it like that.” Glimmer blinks away a round of tears, rubbing them away with the back of her hand. “I’m just scared and i’m alone and I don’t know how to do this alone and i’m tired and can’t eat and can’t stop crying and keep throwing up and i’m just …I’m scared, Clove. I’m really scared. I don’t have a mom anymore. I don’t know how to be one and noone can teach me and I really want to be a good mom.”

Clove nods swiftly, bringing her own breathing back to a normal pace. She would argue, later, that she wasn’t alone. That if she would just tell Marvel– who she has to tell– this would all be resolved. That she had all of them, really, that in this post war world none of them would ever really be alone.

“For what it’s worth, Glimmer, I think you’ll be a really good mother.” Clove says as a peace offering, letting out a steady sigh through her nose.

After Glimmer lets out a soft  “thank you,” in response a comfortable silence falls between them for a few minutes as they await the return of Cato with her sister, before the whole conversation will begin again. 

“....do you want something to eat? I know you said you haven’t eaten in a few days. You’ve been sick, but I can make something simple...”

“Oh. No. I’m not hungry, Clove, but thank you.”

Clove does not accept her denial as an answer, and instead gently removes Glimmer’s head from her legs and standing instead. “No, you have to have something, especially if you’ve been sick too.”

“I’m really not hungry, I swear. Thank you, though, really.” Glimmer insists, curling her knees up closer to her chest once she is alone in Clove’s bed. 

“You may not be hungry, Glimmer but your little–” Clove struggles for the word to use next, as Parasite seems too cruel for Glimmer right now, but baby felt far too formal for the thing that it was at this point. “...your little… stowaway needs something too so. Whether you want me to or not, i’m making you breakfast. So.  What do you want?”

Glimmer hesitates, but gives the slightest hint of a nod, rolling on her side to face the doorframe. “....can I have a grilled cheese?”

And despite the fact it is not even 10:30 in the morning yet, Clove says yes.

[clatoera]

Picket Fence is Sharp as Knives Chapter 4: ...or bring me back to life (part 2)

Hey besties! Welcome back, I'll keep it short and sweet. This is part 2 of Chapter 3, with Cash, GLoss, and Enobaria. This is directly influenced by works by @kentwellss and @bodyelectric77 who I think Capture Enobaria and Cashmere so well, and I most certainly consulted them for advice in writing them! I won't drag this out

Title from Electric Touch (t swift)

AO3

Masterpost

Thank you my friends ❤️ Enjoy!

“Where the hell were you?”  Clove hisses in the door frame, grabbing Cato firmly by the front of his shirt and fully yanking him forward with a brisk jerk of her arm. It’s now nearing noon, a hard couple of hours later than Glimmer’s initial arrival at ten, and Cato is just finally returning home with not just Cashmere but Enobaria and Gloss also in tow. 

Directly behind Cato is Cashmere, perfect blonde curls framing her face, flawless airbrushed makeup covering her already perfect skin, and of course head to toe matching baby pink workout-style clothing.

Clove can’t help but narrow her eyes in a scowl as she looks her over, nevermind the fact that she was just as lethal as she herself is. “Did you think we were having a photoshoot over here, did you really take two hours to get ready to come help your sister-“

It’s Enobaria’s turn to get defensive, wrapping her hand around Clove’s wrist before tugging her out of the way of the doorway and into just into the side of the house. “Do not judge her, Cato just said Glimmer was here and needed her sister, he didn’t specify she was in a crisis until Gloss was already on his way. Do not snap on her.”

Clove watches as the third sibling, also somehow as impeccably dressed as his sister despite the rush to get to Two, follows behind Cashmere, who immediately brushes past Cato to find Glimmer. Though she cannot see her she hears Glimmer promptly start bawling at the sight of her beloved older siblings.  

“It’s been two hours, Cato.” Clove reminds him, pulling herself out of Enobaria’s grasp as she also trails behind the twins. “What have you been doing? I had to make THREE grilled cheeses when you were gone–”

Cato gives a half shrug to his wife, hands up in defeat. “You said it wasn’t my job to tell anyone, how was I supposed to get her here faster?  I had to make small talk with Blondie Two while we waited for Lipgloss to get here. She was trying to convince me to use purple shit in my hair, Clove. I put up with a lot, for you.”

Clove rolls her eyes, but loops her arm through his anyway. “We are going to be hiding in the kitchen.”

“Why are we hiding? I bet it’s going to get good.” Cato teases with a playful smile and raises of his eyebrows, but allows her to tug him along anyway. “I bet you’ll be able to see the makeup be cried right off Cashmere’s face.”

And though Clove stifles a laugh, as they sneak off to hide from the inevitable fall out, she warns him anyway, “say that too loud and Enobaria might rip your mouth off.”

–

“Glimmy, are you sure? Are you absolutely, entirely, one hundred thousand million percent sure?”  Cashmere takes her little sister’s face in her hands, manicured thumbs catching tears as they spill across the crests of her cheek bones. “Are you really really really sure?”

“I’m really sure.” Glimmer admits, with the slightest nod of her head before she wraps both her arms around her sister’s shoulders and pulls in for a tight hug, burying her face in the glossy blonde curls that catch her tears. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Cash insists, squeezing her eyes to push back her own tears, bringing up her hands to caress her hair, fingers catching in the knotted strands at the very end. “We can take care of this for you, I promise. Don’t worry, I’ll start making calls.”

Cashmere almost doesn’t hear Glimmer’s mumbled response, distracted as their brother sits directly on the other side of their sister from where she is nearly in Cash’s lap.

 “What was that, Glim?” Gloss, runs his hand over her back, pausing as he takes in the oversized shirt that is most certainly not hers.

“I said I want it.” Glimmer lifts her head from Cashmere’s shoulder, but rests her cheek there amongst her hair anyway. “I know it’s not okay back home, but it’s mine. And I want it.”

“Oh!” Cashmere feels her voice crack, and wide blue eyes snap open in something like fear to meet Gloss’s who reflect the same uncertainty and concern as her own. “Thats! Um!! Okay! Thats…okay. okay.” 

“I’m going to kill him.” Gloss announces in a voice that is a little too steady, a little too full of intention to be joking. “It’s that stupid little twig twink of a man, isn’t it? I’m going to fucking kill him.”

“What? No! I mean…yes, it’s his, but you can’t kill him.” Glimmer grabs at her brother’s upper arm, squeezing with a desperate plea for him to stop. 

“What did he say to you, then? If you’re this upset, he must have said something. I swear I’m going to kill him, this is his fault. I will snap him like a fucking twig.” Gloss places his large hand on top of Glimmer’s gently squeezing her little hand in his. “What did he say to you, Glimmer? You wouldn’t be this upset if he didn’t run his stupid little mouth.”

“I didn’t tell him. He didn’t say anything, it’s not his fault.”  Glimmer promises yet again, before she hides her face back in her sister's hair. Her thin resolve cracks again, as does her voice, when she finally admits.“I just wish mama were here.”

Cashmere wraps both arms around Gimmer, pulling her once again sobbing little sister closer into her arms. She shoots Gloss a warning look, knowing full well the reality of what their mother would say. Knowing fully well the shame she would say Glimmer brought upon them, the social stigma that Glimmer would be subjected to as a single mother, especially considering the status their family once held. 

Gloss gives her a nod, as if he read her thoughts, and knew it  was going to be something the two of them address on their own before reminding Glimmer of her precarious social situation and the judgment that would soon be passed over her. 

“I’m sorry,” Glimmer murmurs weakly, as if she too can read the silence of her siblings. “I’m sorry, but she’s mine and I really really want her.” 

“You have nothing to be sorry for. This is not your fault, he clearly took advantage -“ Gloss insists, gently rubbing circles on the back of Glimmer’s shoulders.

“He didn’t, Gloss. I was there. I was involved, I was very much participating, it’s not his fault any more than mine-” 

Gloss holds up a hand to stop her from continuing the statement, but he continues to look down at his two sisters with something between distrust and disgust. 

Cashmere holds back the urge to question her, in fear it will sound chastising. She wasn’t a stupid girl, she certainly had the knowledge to make sure this didn’t happen. And she wouldn’t have chosen this on purpose, would she?  It was a question for another time, when she wasn’t as fragile or shaking with fear in her arms. 

“It’ll be okay.” Cash promises, and though she is not sure how much she believes it, she assured glimmer anyway. “You’ll be okay. We’ll help you. We’ll be right here.”

“And I’m serious, I will kill him Glimmer.”

“Gloss…” Cashmere warns, allowing Glimmer to fully collapse in her arms. “He’ll only kill him if you want him to.”

“Please, don’t. He doesn’t know. He won’t know, he didn’t upset me.” Glimmer assures, nearly laying over so that her head rests on her sister’s thigh and her feet rest in the lap of her brother as she tries to catch her breath and cease her own crying, as it continues to make her head and throat ache. 

“Oh he will know, he has an obligation to you–” Gloss insists, leaning back on Clove’s soft couch, getting comfortable as Glimmer seems to do the same. 

“He has no obligation to me, just like I have none to him.” Glimmer curls on her side, resting her cheek on the soft baby pink of Cashmere’s leggings. “He doesn’t need to know.”

“He most definitely needs to know–” Comes the booming voice of Cato from the kitchen, before it is abruptly shut down by a groan and a “Fuck, Enobaria, that hurt!”

There is a tense silence that falls over the three siblings, as Glimmer continues to cry aimlessly across the laps of her siblings, as if she were just a little girl who had gotten picked on just a moment too long at school and ran to Cashmere and Gloss to fix it. None speak, none continue the string of questions of ‘how long’ or ‘do you know what this is going to do to you?”

Instead they hold her, letting her sobs be the only sound filling Cato and Clove’s living room, until finally, finally she cries herself to sleep in the arms of her sister. 

–

“It’s not even the afternoon yet Enobaria, did you spend too much time around Haymitch, give me that.” Clove reaches to swipe the bottle of Vodka out of Enobaria’s fingers, but she quickly holds the bottle above her head and just out of reach of Clove. 

“Listen, I’m celebrating, Clove.” Enobaria smirks, hoping up to sit on Clove’s kitchen island, ducking down out of Cato’s grabbing hands, too. “I even invited Brutus but he’s out on a run, or we’d be having a full blown party right now.”

“What are we celebrating?” The voice of Gloss calls out, as he and Cashmere slip into the kitchen sans Glimmer. Cashmere is noticeably wiping tears out of her lash line, no longer holding in her emotions now that Glimmer is comfortably tucked away on the couch, sleeping under a plush blanket at last. 

“That it was yours and not mine.” Enobaria gestures to Cato and Clove, before taking approximately a shot worth of vodka straight out of the bottle. 

“That’s so mean.” Cashmere remarks, but once she wipes away her tears on the sleeve of her shirt, she holds her hands out to take the bottle from Enobaria. “Give me some of that.”

“I’m married?” Clove scowls, as Cato shoots Enobaria an offended look. “

“Yeah well.. Things were looking scary there when you were seventeen, Clove. I was concerned.” Enobaria hands Cashmere the Vodka, and hops down to wrap her arms around her shoulders from behind. “It’s okay. Seriously. She’s going to be just fine.”

“I have failed her. In every single step of her life. I have failed to protect her again and again and again and again. I have never been able to protect her.” Cashmere admits, taking a long drink from the bottle before handing it directly to her brother who follows suit. She turns to face Enobaria, who wipes away her tears this time. 

Cato chuckles to himself, rubbing at the back of his neck with a hand as if he is debating actually letting his joke out. “I think it was someone else who actually failed at protection-”

“Will you shut your stupid stupid mouth for more than forty five seconds, Cato.” Enobaria glares, but Clove does in fact laugh at his stupid joke, which is more than enough validation for him. 

“She’s pregnant, not dying.” Clove tries to assuage, and though her tone is reassuring, the anxious way she is scoring some sort of squash betrays she feels otherwise. “I had no dad and I'm just fine.”

“Yeah, Clove, you’re the picture of well adjusted.” Gloss snaps, but reaches over her to grab a handful of the carrots she has already sliced into perfect little match sticks to give her hands something to do. 

“To be fair, Clove’s issues are deeper than not having a dad.” Enobaria defends absently, but the majority of her attention is on Cashmere, on trying to get her to breathe through the sobs that flow through her body as if her grief is being pumped by her very heart. 

“Wow, thanks.”

Cato interjects, anger rising more and more in his voice, though the fact he has not yet snapped is a testament to how much he has had to grow since his time as a temperamental teenager.  “It HAS a dad, who deserves to know  about it. He has a right to know it exists!”

“Will you shut up, Cato?” Cashmere whines, running her hands over her face in frustration. “You’re not helping.”

“No, I won’t shut up. And you’re in my house. So I’ll say whatever the fuck I want. And what I want to say is that he has a fucking right to know. And if she does not tell him, I will. I’m not fucking around, I will tell him.” Cato snarls, before stepping around to stand behind Clove, his hands wrapping around her waist before he starts getting a little too aggressive in more than just his voice. “He has a right to know.”

“You can’t tell him, but I do agree with you. He deserves to know. And you all know that, too.” Clove agrees, leaning her head back against his chest, before resting one of her hands on top of both of his. 

“You’d tell me, right, Clove?” Cato asks, and though he directs it to Clove, it’s clear that he’s making a point.”

“Before literally anyone else, Cato.” Clove admits, before she goes back to perfectly cubing vegetables into perfect, sharp edged cubes. 

“That’s different.” Enobaria points out, “besides, everyone’s been worried about that for like ten years, no one would really be shocked–”

“It’s not different. Because whether or not we had been together, doesn’t matter. I would still tell him.” Clove responds, wiping her starch covered hands on the sides of Cato’s shirt she still wore from bed this morning. “And let's not pretend we don’t all know he’s obsessed with her, it isn’t like he’ll be mad.”

“I, honestly, don’t know if I believe it’s his. I don’t even believe he’s into women-” Gloss admits, before he finishes off the rest of the bottle of vodka the three older victors had been passing around. “He’s a little too twinky, if you know what I mean-”

“I promise it is his. She explicitly blamed us for that part.” Cato points out, before he reaches out and takes the empty bottle before it can end up shattered on the marble floor. “Seriously, though. Clove’s right. She isn’t dying.”

“You don’t understand what she’s going to face back home,” Gloss begins. “There’s very certain standards in District One, especially when you consider the status our family had. There is a big emphasis on the standard family, on marriage, on children, and to stray from that..”

“It’s social suicide.” Cashmere sniffles, but the cold look on her face conveys a rage her snuffling does not. “Not that there’s much left of that level of society but…those that still exist will eat her alive.”

Gloss continues, “she will be ostracized. We weren’t even allowed to play with children who came from families that strayed from that set structure. Glimmer…she’ll be outcast. Her baby will have no friends, and will not be allowed to socialize with the children of her class. She’s going to be very, very isolated, it won’t be good for her.”

“It’s true, even when I go over, we just say we’re very good friends.” Enobaria admits, resting her chin on Cashmere’s shoulder. “There’s different expectations there.”

“Even after all she’s gone through? After she was thrown to the wolves of the Capitol for ten years, people are going to begrudge her this little bit of peace?” Clove raises a dark eyebrow, but leans forward on her hands on the counter top.  “Even as a Victor, people would do this to her?

“It doesn’t matter. All that will matter is that she is a mother and she is unmarried and that will be enough.” Gloss grimaces as he sits at the island, bringing his head to rest in his hands. “I don’t even know what our mom would do if she knew.”

“She loved Glimmer, so much. But she also loved her status. Her social circle. I don’t like to think about what she’d say.” Cashmere admits, maneuvering so that she is not broken from Enobaria’s arms but is able to sit beside her brother. “And if she saw her today, even? In that sweater that is way too big, where did she even get that, oh our mother would be so disappointed.”

“It’s his.” Clove confides, before she goes right back to anxiously perfecting sharp edges, creating rectangles of squash,  wiping the knife on a kitchen towel before she does so. “It makes her feel warm, and safe, I guess. Something about how she used to wear them in the Capitol, I don’t know. I didn’t press any further. But it’s his shirt.” She pauses, and runs her hand over the sharp edge of the blade. “Maybe she’ll be happy, and that will be enough. Maybe, just maybe, it’s possible for her to be happy despite the things the district will say about her. Cato and I know as well as anyone what it’s like to have half a district turn on you, but we’re happy anyway. Maybe, and you apparently think i’m fucking crazy, but maybe she will be happy.”

There is an awkward, tense pause that comes over all of them at the conflicting viewpoints. If Glimmer would be happy despite the social stigma she was heading into, well that is something only time will tell. 

“We could…just kill him?” Enobaria offers as a distraction, a coy smile on her face.

“I was actually about to suggest that. Enobaria could get away with it...” Gloss perks up, lifting his head from his hands to chime in. “He wouldn’t see it coming if Enobaria showed up.”

“Right because if there's a murder who would ever suspect us of being capable of such atrocities.” Clove interjects,  not even bothering to honor their ridiculous idea with eye contact.

“Or…she could just tell him!” Cato tries on last time, though at this point, it’s clear none of them are getting anywhere.

“Well…. Since we’re all here, Clove, do you think you could make it like a brunch situation or anything? I bet Brutus is done on his run-” Gloss requests, flashing her a dazzling smile that has Cato glaring in his direction. 

“Sorry, my charity meals are complete for the week, try again next time.”

“...Clove, do you have knives or something, I need to go throw at something.” Cashmere decides, hopping off the island chair and out of Enobaria’s comforting embrace. She could at the very least blow off some much needed steam. 

“Second drawer on your left.”

“No, not kitchen knives, I mean-’

“I know. Second drawer on your left.”

[clatoera]

Picket Fence is Sharp as Knives Chapter 6:  Not trying to fall in love but we did like children running

Hi my loves! So. I absolutely hate this chapter. I hate it. I think it's because I liked last chapter SO much and it was so important and this feels so...bleh. Idk. BUT I wanted to post something today for two reasons

It is exactly one year since I posted ARWBFB! Happy birthday ARWBFB, how far we have come! I wanted to go back to the OG roots with this chapter in honor of that, and do something that is just so quintessential Cato and Clove and thats what this is supposed to be!

This is the last chapter for about 2-3 weeks! I have a really stressful couple of weeks ahead where I find out if I have a job or not and will simply be too anxious to write in the mean time! So this is a little Clato-centric treat to hold us all over until I get back to writing in a couple of weeks!

Title from The Very First Night (taylor swift of course)

AO3

Masterpost

As always thank you to the besties who get me through. I quite literally hate this chapter and i'm not happy with it but I put it into the world anyway and it's for y'all. @bodyelectric77 as always, thanks for putting up with my pouting in the DMs. @kentwells I hope this satisfies your cries for Clato content. @ohhowwehavefallen you just get tagged at this point even if you don't want to be sorry not sorry.

Okay! Here we go. Happy birthday ARWBFB you will always be famous to me.

“Why are you all excited?” Clove teases, reaching her arms above her head so she can tighten her smooth ponytail, swatting his hand away as he goes to flick the ends down into her face. “You act like we’ve never done this before.”

“Clove, it's been literal years since we’ve got to do this. We were teenagers.” Cato slides his fingers under the strap of her sports bra and snaps it against her shoulder, something that years ago he learned would make her jump and give the cutest little scowl. When they were fifteen it was accompanied by a knife whirling past his head, but today it was met with a sharp fingernail jabbing his ribs in the same place she stabbed the day they met. “Besides…don’t you remember Enobaria telling us she was never letting us step foot in this new training center? What did she say we were going to do to it? Defer it?”

“Defile it.” Clove corrects, smiling just a little to herself at his enthusiasm. Yeah, maybe it was not the kind of training they had grown up with, but Cato’s excitement was borderline contagious. And yeah…maybe she was a little excited too. She had plenty of pent up aggression with no outlet other than a steak knife and a tree in the back yard these days.  “This isn’t training like we’re used to, you know. These aren’t special kids like we were.”

They clearly were not the first choice to take this class, gathered by the disgruntled and last minute request of Brutus earlier this same morning. Apparently the usual teacher canceled earlier this week, but Enobaria had been distracted by some sort of Cashmere related crisis (and if they understood from her vague but uncharacteristically flustered call, it was a Cashmere-Finnick-Glimmer kind of crisis and no one could blame her for her properly placed priorities) and she forgot to find a cover. It was a very hesitant Brutus who offered them the afternoon class followed with the promise of free reign of the athletic facilities afterward to do with as they pleased. 

“I haven’t even worked out like that in forever..” Clove continues her internal thoughts out loud, speeding her steps up just a little to keep in time with Cato’s much longer strides. “I can run, yeah, but I don’t even know if I could still do like..a pull up.”

“You’re still pretty flexible, at least.” Cato easily wraps both hands around her waist, before flipping her over his shoulder and tossing her just slightly into the air before she lands back in his hands. The way she kicks at him to put her down is not foreign, and his arms are long since trained to hold her steady despite her flailing tantrums. “And lightweight.”

“Cato, put me down!” Clove demands through gritted teeth, staring indignantly at the ground behind him. She wants to beat her fists against his shoulder and his spine, but experience has taught her that is no use. She is at his will until he decides otherwise.

“Ask nicely…” He taunts her, and she feels a firm squeeze at the top of her right thigh, causing her to squirm in his arms yet again. It is after this that he sets her down, but she realizes when her feet hit pavement rather than grass that it is not because of her own indignity. 

The building is not on the remains of what was once their academic and educational home, but rather a much smaller, independent center. It’s much nearer the school where Cato’s mother teaches rather than a pillar of status in the center of the district. It’s no grand home of future victors with the best weaponry district money can buy. No…it’s just a building with a couple of sports fields and some sort of indoor recreational area. 

In short, it’s the kind of place Cato and Clove would have seen as the loser training center, back in their childhood. 

He slips his littler hand into his, and gives her hand the littlest squeeze of confidence, before be absolutely pulls her inside, betraying even more interest than he had let on in their walk here. 

Even as they enter through the double glass doors, they simultaneously notice that it’s so incredibly different than the type of athletic training they had been exposed to in their youth. 

There’s about twenty four shoe cubbies on the wall underneath a coordinated number of hooks, all littered with various little child-sized rain coats and backpacks. There are windows all around the top of the room, pouring in natural light, that are open just enough to allow the air that hints of spring to filter in as a refreshing reminder of the impending warm weather and longer days. 

It’s such a staunch difference from what they grew up with. Now, the only way Cato can think to describe the center of their youth is dungeon like; no windows, fluorescent lights that fucked with the circadian rhythm of their adolescent bodies. Treating time outside and fresh air as a reward was probably some psychological trick to keep them hyped and excited for the games– arenas were almost always outdoors. 

On the other wall is a simple wooden desk, a stack of manilla folders, and an old pre-war desktop computer that had likely been repurposed from one of the many destroyed buildings in their district. There was a woman sitting behind the desk, with simple dark hair and matching eyes, typing absently as she inputs something into what they assume is an online system.

She looks up with disinterest, a monotonous voice welcoming them to the center. However, she must recognize them after a few moments of her typical spiel, because her head peaks up a little straighter. “Cato? Clove? I didn’t know you two were the replacements today?”

Clove recognizes her as a girl who was probably three or four years older than her, Selene if she remembers correctly. She had never even been a top three contender for the games; even if she had who would she have been killed by? Marvel? Annie? Johanna? 

Funny, Clove thinks to herself, that she does not see this girl as someone who would have been a victor, but someone who would have fallen to one of her now friends. 

“It was sort of a last minute thing, we didn’t expect to be.” Cato answers cordially, though the tilt in his voice told Clove he was trying to place this girl. “Selena, right? What are you doing here?”

“Selene.” The woman answers cooly, continuing the loud clicking of her nails against the keyboard. 

Clove resists an eye roll at the evident offense she’s taken to Cato’s lack of recall of her exact name. Clove was called Clover for half her childhood– suck it the fuck up. 

“I bring my son here,” Selene clips, slamming the keys a little aggressively, possibly more offended than she let on. “The quarry his dad worked in was one of the many destroyed in the war, taking him with it. I needed a job. The hours were good. Enobaria remembered me from back in the academy, she took pity on me.” 

“You have a kid?” Clove asks, mouth risking falling open in disbelief. In her head they were still children, even if she had been older than Clove herself it was hard to believe she was old enough to have a whole child. 

Cato raises an eyebrow, and something falls into place for him as to who this girl is even if he is sure not to betray that out loud. “I’m sorry..about his dad.”

“That's what happens to the rest of us, Clove, when we didn’t get to go to the games. We had to get jobs and go about our lives.”  Selene responds politely, but the way her eyes flick to the clock behind them reveals she is trying to get out of this conversation as quickly as she can. “Thank you, Cato, He’s in the same class as your sister, I think. Oh look, there he comes now–” 

A dinging bell, far less alarming than the whistle that used to be blown at them, signals what they can only explain as the end of the class, and children begin to pour out as parents begin to pour in from the outside. 

Cato and Clove are relieved from the conversation when someone slams into Cato from the side, and Clove only has to slightly lower her gaze to see Cora clinging to his leg. 

“Hey kiddo,” Cato immediately melts, his demeanor completely shifting as he pulls his sister onto his hip. “I didn’t know you were coming here today?” “Are we teaching your class?” Clove grins, suddenly a lot more enthusiastic at the thought of teaching when it came to Cora being involved. 

“No, she actually just finished up. We come here twice a week.” Cato’s mom joins them, rubbing her son’s arm affectionately before she hands Cora her backpack. “You must have the baby class.”

The enthusiasm Clove just felt falls as fast as her facial expression, and her eyes go as wide as dinner plates at the thought. “What do you mean baby class? I thought we’d have teenagers. Or kids like..our age.”

“You aren’t kids anymore, my dear.” Clove’s mother in law reminds her with amusement in her tone, taking her daughter from her son. “The baby class is right after Cora’s. They’re all five and under. You mean no one told you what class you were covering?”

The hesitance in Brutus’ voice makes so much more sense now– of course no one wanted them responsible for babies. Okay, kids, but really really little kids. 

“...Brutus just said we could have the space when the class ended.” Clove grumbles, crossing her arms over her chest as she watches parents of even younger children begin to drop them off by the door. 

“At least it’s only a twenty minute class.” Cato’s mother tries, but firmly takes Cora’s hand. There's an smug amusement in her voice that she does not even bother covering, “Tell Cato and Clove you’ll see them tomorrow for dinner, Cora. They have a class to teach.”

“Byyyye,” Cora whines, and as she starts to head out with her mother,  she whips her head back around to lock eyes with Clove. “Will you pleeeeeease take me to see Glimmer and the babies soon? You promised we could see them!”

“Soon, Cora. Soon.” Clove assured, giving her a little wave on the way out. Cora had demanded pictures of the twins every single time she had seen Clove in the couple of weeks since their birth, and practically begged to see them. Glimmer had been fine with it, and insisted it was okay to bring her during one of their many weekly trips to District One. Clove however couldn’t help but hesitate– weren’t school aged kids kind of gross to be around such new babies?

“...Twenty minutes, Clove. We can do anything for Twenty minutes.” Cato tries, but there's a unsure edge in his voice that does not comfort Clove. If either of them were going to be comfortable with kids it would have been Cato– his hesitance was doing nothing to ensure Clove this was going to go well.

As they brace themselves, slowly entering the general gymnasium area, Cato nudges Clove with his shoulder. “I finally realize where I can recognize Selene from.”

“Yeah, she was a couple years older than us in training–”

“No, no, not that. She was hooking up with my roommate when we were fifteen.”

“Delightful.” Clove responds, but the smirk on Cato’s face falls when he looks up and realizes it was not a response to his epiphany at all. 

At some point the room had filled with about ten kindergarten aged kids, who were in various positions from sitting criss-cross to face down on the floor. The one that lies face down on the floor lets out a high pitched cry completely unprovoked, and Clove looks around in what can only be described as horror. 

“What the hell were we thinking?” Clove hisses, low enough that none of the kids even looked over at her. She suppresses a gag as one of the little boys stuck his finger fearlessly down the throat of another, before the receiving boy chomps down on his invading fingers and he too joins his comrade in wailing. “Can these kids even tie their own shoes?”

As if the universe heard her question, one of the girls trips directly over her untied shoelaces and falls directly onto one of the other kids. 

“This is a nightmare.” Clove grabs Cato’s arm, pulling him down towards her height. “What the hell do we do with these kids?”

“...do you think we pair them up?” Cato half-suggests half-asks, quickly counting them up. “There's five boys and five girls, could we pair them?” “And do what? Teach them to wrestle?” Clove snaps, but she has nothing better to offer. “Fine. Whatever. Maybe we make them warm up first?”

“Hey..hey…hey!” Cato tries three times before his booming voice earns ten little shocked pairs of eyes staring up at him open mouthed and wide, more than likely never having been yelled at by such a large man before. “Do you kids want to run a lap or something to warm up?” Cato suggests, trying to move on quickly before he scares them to the verge of tears. 

A little arm shoots up from the same little girl who tripped over her shoes only seconds prior. Clove nods in her direction, but she continues to speak before Clove actually gets a chance to acknowledge her verbally. “What-sa lap?”

Clove stares, quite frankly a little dumbfounded. She was asking Enobaira to teach her to throw knives at this age– and these kids don’t know what a lap is? “A lap is when you run around the room in a circle.. You know what? Cato can show you.” She shoots him a smug smile, crossing her arm over her chest before using the other to gesture to the open gymnasium space. “Go ahead Cato!”

Cato can only glare at his wife, before he takes off in a half hearted jog around the room. Clove’s smug grin does not fall from her face until he returns in front of them, these kids still staring blankly up at them both. 

Cato gestures to the open room again, gesturing down to the group of kindergarteners. “Okay..your turn.” 

They are met with wide eyes and confused faces, and Clove and Cato exchange another look of confusion. “Are they dumb?” Clove whispers, and Cato responds with a light shrug before his arms cross over his chest. 

“You guys can run..” Clove explains again, speaking much slower this time as if that will help betray her meaning to the group. “Run…”

The same little girl as before raises her hand again, and as before she speaks before she is even acknowledged. “My shoes are untied.”

“Me too!”

“Me too!” 

A chorus of “me toos” seems to come from the entire group of children, all who stick their feet out expectantly. 

“Oh. And you don’t like..know how to fix that?” Clove questions, raising a dark eyebrow almost in disbelief. Did parents teach anything these days? “Why don’t you all just…take them off. Yeah. Take off your shoes and run like that!”

There’s a general mix of confusion from the children, but that is overpowered by the excitement of feeling like they are breaking rules as they all take off their little shoes and throw them casually to the side. 

One by one they take off running, little legs not carrying them very fast around the full sized gym. 

“They don’t go very fast do they?” Clove mumbles, rubbing her hand over the length of her face. “This should take up the next ten minutes at least. Then we only have to fill ten more.”

“Yeah! You have legs that size too and you don’t use it as an excuse–” Cato earns a sharp poke in his side for that one, but it does not take the smile off his face. 

Every couple of steps one of the kids wipes out, the combination of socks and waxed floor no match for their underdeveloped muscle coordination. As a fourth thud is heard, Cato shakes his head in disbelief. “These really are the loser kids.”

“District Two doesn’t make ‘em like us anymore.” Clove agrees, watching the clock tick by as one by one the group of kids returns in front of them, thoroughly out of breath as some of them lay down on the floor. “How was that!”

“I want to go home!” 

“Yeah, I want to go home too.” Clove whispers only for Cato to hear before she claps her hands in front of her. “Okaaaay. We are going to pair you up. Every boy is going to be with a girl-”

“Ewww girls!” Comes from one bratty little boy, who stomps his feet in a way that irritates Clove so deeply she wants to rip out her own hair. 

“You won’t always say that.” Cato assures, and continues trying to make little tiny pairs of boys and girls, who immediately are separating. Some throw themselves to the ground, some cling to their friends. Either way it is not going well. 

“I don’t want to be with a boy! Boys have cooties!” Another girl whines in protest, her little braids bouncing as she shakes her head back and forth. 

“That will change… That will change.” Clove murmurs to herself again, before putting her hands up in defeat. “What happened to discipline! And honor! And skill!” She asks in Cato’s general direction, gesturing out in front of them. “Who is raising kids like this!”

“Our ex-classmates, apparently.” Cato retorts, but finally waves his hand to silence the room. “Fine. You have ten minutes left. Just. I don’t know, play or something? Don’t kill each other.”

“Even that, we would have been encouraged to kill each other, Cato. We TRIED to!” Clove watches as the kids generally disperse into the open space. “This is unbelievable.”

“We better make sure Cora isn’t like this. And we are not letting Glimmer and Marvel raise losers either.” Cato insists, rubbing a tired hand over his face as the room is filled with the sound of kids just playing. “Actually they may be a lost cause, Marvel was a fluke victor.”

Clove snorts back a laugh, digging through the bin of various sized balls and other semi-athletic equipment used by the other classes. There was nothing knife-like nor sword-like in sight. She settles on a tennis ball, tossing it lightly up and down in her hand, testing the weight of it. 

Without warning she launches it at a target on the wall, and the sound of it smacking off the concrete brings the room silent for almost a moment. Clove ignores the ache that ebbs in her shoulder at the force, and goes back to find another of the same projectiles. “These aren’t even weighted properly.”

“You’re just that good.” Cato promises, wrapping his arms around her waist and letting his hands linger on the exposed skin of her abdomen a little longer. “I thought we were actually going to get to do something cool.” 

“I thought I'd get to watch you take a cocky teenage boy down. I love when you put them in their place.” Clove teases, before she goes back to digging for a couple more appropriately sized tennis balls for her to throw. When she turns back Cato is no longer directly beside her, but has migrated to the mounted bar against the wall. She watches the muscles in his back and shoulders flex as he effortlessly pulls himself up and down in rep after rep of pull ups as if they were nothing. And for Cato? They absolutely were.

She stares at him for a few moments, and even though he’s mostly minding his business, Clove knows him too well. He’s absolutely showing off, and wordlessly challenging her to do the same (and it helps knowing that she most definitely is staring a little too long at his arms as he does so).

Cato knows his display paid off when the sound of rubber on the wall hits round after round around his head as Clove continues to never miss a target. “I miss knives.” She remarks with loud annoyance as the final ball hits the wall, and when Cato opens his mouth to respond he realizes there is an eerie quiet in the room of children.

He lets go of the bar, feet hitting the floor with agility,  and when he turns around he notices ten pairs of eyes absolutely locked in on the two of them and their display of athletic dominance. 

“Clove…” Cato says calmly, taking a few steps towards her as she gathers ammunition for another round of throws. 

“What, you wanna show some actual skills other than flexing your arms-”

“Turn around.”

Clove furrows her eyebrows in confusion but does as he asks, trusting him more than she questions his motive. A sly smile creeps on her face as she sees the awed expressions of the kids they were supposed to be teaching, not ignoring, for the last ten minutes. “I think they’re impressed.. Nothing new. Who isn’t?” Clove begins, before she is cut off by the overly charming alarm that signaled class already being over. 

“That was actually pretty easy.” Cato announces, as the barefoot kids quickly run to meet the waiting arms of their rightfully confused parents. 

Not too long later, once the building is mostly empty save for the two of them, they sit side by side against the wall. 

Cato audibly sighs, stretching his legs out in front of him as his arm drapes over her shoulders. She didn’t need to say it, but he could tell from the way she leaned into him that she was feeling a little bit of an ache from the overuse this afternoon.

 “I didn’t think that would be so exhausting. I’m starving.” Cato admits, running his free hand over the side of his face.

Clove laughs, burying her face into his neck as she lets out a sigh of agreement. They didn’t even do that much. Just something about the whole situation; from the unathletic kids, to the whining, to the over competitive nature that their relationship would just never outgrow. “I think I have half a granola bar in my coat pocket. It’s no peanut butter and jelly sandwich but-”

“Damn, I was really hoping you’d peel all the white shit off a pomegranate with a knife for me like old times.”

“You don’t even like pomegranates that much.” 

“Yeah, but you’re pretty hot with a knife.”

[prettygoododds]

Thank you @roomwithanopenfire @rimeswithpurple and @blackberrysummerblog for the tags today.

I'm currently chipping away at Picket Fence Is Sharp As Knives. Things have gotten busy for me, but that sometimes turns out to be okay and the words come more freely when I'm not forcing them.

Here's a short, fun little Agatha and Simon exchange for your to enjoy today:

“His– he– it’s fine. More than fine. It’s perfect. I don’t want to talk about that. How?!” I sputter indignantly at her.  “Oh Simon, I can’t be the one who tells you how it all works. When a silly boy and another posher silly boy like each other very much they push each other at the playground for years and years until one day—”

No pressure tags : @ic3-que3n @dohrnaira @thewholelemon @facewithoutheart @artsyunderstudy @imagineacoolusername @shemakesmeforget @ivelovedhimthroughworse @wellbelesbian @aristocratic-otter @cutestkilla @nausikaaa @supercutedinosaurs @nightimedreamersworld @valeffelees @iamamythologicalcreature @shrekgogurt @ileadacharmedlife @martsonmars @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @hushed-chorus @youarenevertooold @noblecorgi @bookish-bogwitch @talentpiper11