Maybe I need you | cato/clove
Maybe I Need You
the hunger games, cato/clove | victor!clove
She's starting to see his ghost in everything she does.
yesterday i carved your name into the surface of an ice cube
then held it against my heart til it melted into my aching pores
There is a stunned silence after the new rule is revoked.
There are knives in her jacket, in her bag, in her hand. He'd be dead in an instant.
(He has his sword in his hand, the big, blonde killing machine. She'd be dead in an instant.)
They stare at each other as seconds and minutes pass.
Then he smiles at her, lifts his sword and lunges.
(We'll win together, he'd whispered against her mouth that night.)
42 seconds, his blood on her face and an entire lifetime later, Clove is declared the 74th Hunger Games Victor.
.
They dress her in a soft white gown, cover her from head to toe in glitter and diamonds and make up, everything she's been born ready to adorn. They flutter around her, the team of make-up artists, congratulating her and showering her with praises. Her stylist gushes too, cooing and ahhing every time she recounts one of Clove's kills.
Clove stays still and silent through it all, allowing them to buzz around her and prepare her for the ceremonies. She takes in her face in the mirror, pointed and sharp, and regards her glittering eye lashes remembering the girl from One, sex-on-legs was it, with lush green eyes and soft blond hair and the filthy way she used to cling to Cato.
She's dead now, swollen face and tracker jacker poison, and Clove's the winner.
They're all dead, she thinks, and she's the Victor.
.
The Victory Parade starts in Two.
She's dressed in gold this time, her dress resembling that which she wore at her unveiling, at their unveiling in the Capitol, but it's even more magnificent. It looks to the rest of the world like she's dressed in pure gold, and she can tell from the eyes of spectators that even her skin seems to glow.
"This is what winning looks like," her stylist beams, showing all her teeth.
The entire district is there to see her. Every last person, every last child is out to hail the Victor from Two, the one that has brought them honour and glory again. She recognises some of the faces as they move her chariot slowly along; faces from the Academy, some begrudging and some in awe, the women from the flower shop the Academy used to order from every time a trainee died, the fat butcher that knew exactly how she liked her meat.
Her parents stand at the front of the crowd, tall and proud. She waves at them, and they wave back. That's when she sees him, about ten meters back where the crowd stops pushing to get to the front. His features are unmistakable and his eyes are hard. Clove's heart stills. Did the Capitol drug her?
He turns his head to a woman next to him. They look almost exactly alike. There's a young boy with them. He looks like Cato too.
Clove remembers: Cato had a younger brother. She raises her hand to them.
The woman looks down, around, anywhere but at her. His brother lifts his chin proudly and defiantly in her direction, but the gleam in his eyes betray tears. Only Cato's father regards her with a steady gaze. He nods at her.
Clove understands the gesture. At least it was you.
Clove agrees with the sentiment. Cato thought so too, she thinks.
.
It isn't long before they throw a banquet and bring her to meet the rest of the Victors.
"Hi, I'm Finnick," a good looking boy steps forward and introduces himself. He flashes her the most brilliant of smiles. Behind him, a girl with a hard expression stares at her.
"Johanna," she says before she turns to the pretty boy called Finnick, "and shouldn't you be going?"
Finnick laughs, "I need to renegotiate this 24/7 on call arrangement."
Clove's lost in the situation, her instincts strangely dull. Without training, without knives hidden in her jacket or up her sleeves, without blood staining her fingertips, she's been drifting in and out of each day in an empty trance.
Some of the non-Career victors approach her, introducing themselves tentatively. Some of them don't introduce themselves at all. They all open in the same way though, with, "I'm so sorry about what happened. The Capitol took things too far this year."
She ignores the first few. It's too polite, too civil, too relaxed in the banquet hall. These weaklings; they're all Victors?
"Hi," a woman with frazzled dark hair and sunken eyes steps forward. She looks like she's over fifty, but Clove knows she's in her mid thirties. Clove knows her name, district and stats too. Standard past-victor analysis, session 73: sometimes dexterity and agility can overcome brute force. Clove knows the video well. If she'd had any more than half a heart, she might have even cited the woman as inspiration.
"I'm so sorry about how it ended. I can't imagine how painful it must have been."
There's a sad, kind smile on her face. It makes Clove's blood boil. She takes the carving knife from the banquet table and pushes the woman against the wall, knife against her throat. Her head bangs against the wall with a dull thud. The sound reassures Clove.
"Feeling pain is a sign of weakness," Clove sneers, "do I look weak to you?"
"No, you don't," she replies without missing a beat, "but winning changes everything."
Clove drops the knife. Her eyes meet Finnicks as he brushes past her.
"See you later, sweetheart," Finnick says before leaving. He's still smiling, but there is something decidedly cold about his eyes.
"Don't worry about it," Johanna says later without looking up from a magazine, "eventually they'll call you up as well."
It's the exact same night later that the Capitol calls Clove. She doesn't speak when she picks the phone up. In the mansion, nothing good has ever come from a telephone call to the main line. It's an automated voice with the name of a client and an address. She's about to hang up thinking it's the wrong number when she hears the recorded voice of President Snow.
"Do cooperate with us. Your family will be most grateful-" her fingers tighten on the phone, "and you will be paid handsomely in, might I add, whatever you may desire within reasonable limits."
("I don't know much about you," Johanna said once she put the magazine down and Clove had finished inspecting every single knife present in the room, "but I'm pretty sure you still have at least one person left that you actually care about."
Clove didn't say anything. She just stared, impassive, back.
"Take it from Finnick; do what they say.")
Clove prepares only a small knife before leaving.
.
The door is left unlocked so she lets herself in without bothering to knock.
It's a nice apartment, small by Capitol standards but still decent. There are pictures of family and friends framed and hung on the walls, odds and ends of the life of the person living there, like an instrument in a corner or books packed into shelves.
It feels too much like a home to Clove, something she doesn't much remember having. It isn't her life anymore. All she can remember is the training arena, target after moving target, and a hulk of a boy with golden hair and blue, blue eyes.
Clove whips out a knife and throws it. She deliberately misses and it hits the doorframe with a sharp "whack!"
A boy steps out of the room, laughing and applauding.
"Nice shot." His eyes gleam, "a drink?"
She gets herself drunk quickly before kissing him. It gets remarkably easier after that.
Clove's already forgotten his name; it's of no importance anyway. He's got blonde hair and blue eyes and he doesn't look a thing like Cato, but she grips onto him and murmurs Cato's name anyway.
.
There are dreams and there are nightmares.
Sometimes she is back in training camp, knives in her hand, up her sleeves, attached to her thighs, everywhere. She feels comfortable. Cato flexes opposite her.
This is the best part of the Academy; the one-on-one "friendly" spars once they've effectively shown they can handle everything else that's been thrown their way: pathetic excuses (in her opinion) for moving targets, obstacle courses, horrific survival camps that many of the weaker trainees have been known to die in. They're not supposed to gravely wound or injure each other when sparring though. Every single one of them left is a potential Victor, someone to bring honour to their district.
Depending on the pair, drawing blood is sometimes allowed. Clove had done so on each occasion with the utmost pleasure.
With stronger pairs though, trainees that will almost definitely win The Games, the rules are different. No blood is allowed.
She's facing Cato again. He smiles manically, mouths it'll be too late. Clove just grins back with all her teeth.
Between them, it always ends with a stalemate. Sometimes, she pricks the side of his neck where she can see his jugular vein protruding. A small drop of blood swells.
I guess I win, she will whisper in his ear.
It's the only time she feels alive.
Sometimes she is back at the Cornucopia, knives soaring through the blood bath, wary of her back but never afraid because Cato is always, always there.
Except this time, things are different.
Her back is to the Cornucopia and her feet are off the ground. She's thrashing and struggling and screaming for him, and god - she has never felt more afraid for her life.
The district 11 boy pushes her back and brings the rock up and -
She wakes up shaking, removes the knife from under her pillow and draws a dainty cut across her palm just to feel herself bleed.
.
The calls keep coming. Clove keeps answering them.
"Everything alright with the Capitol?" Her mother asks one night.
Ever since she can remember, the Academy has been the only thing Clove knows. Training, conditioning, preparation was her life. It's all about volunteering to be a Tribute one day. They never prepare you for what comes after.
Both her parents look much older than the last day she saw them before she left for the Games. They'd both cried that day, Clove remembers. She hadn't felt anything at all.
Her mother smiles at her, concern in her eyes.
"No," Clove shakes her head and looks away, "it's nothing."
This is all she has left.
.
"Congratulations," he whispers, and he is right by her ear. He's too near; she's afraid his sword might have already impaled her.
But there is nothing. No pain. No blood. Wait-
"You've won."
And he collapses.
This time, this time, it is different. She jumps out of bed with tears streaming down her face. Her sweater is on, then her coat, then her boots and she's running to his house.
Cato's mother opens the door, and all Clove can see in her old, kind, over-cried eyes is the boy she should have gone home with.
"I'm, I'm-" Clove gasps, because, truth be told, she doesn't know why she's here. She didn't even know she knew the way.
"I'm," she tries again, and fuckfuckfuck he looks just like her.
"I'm dead." She chokes out.
Cato's mother nods and takes Clove into the house. They don't stop crying until dawn breaks.
maybe i need you the way that big moon needs that open sea
maybe i didn't even know i was here til i saw you holding me
FIN.
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