shenevermisses | 13th Throw - [ action / written ]

13th Throw - [ action / written ]

Written:

I want a specific scenario in the Battle Dome. Can someone help me program it? I'll repay you. Terms can be discussed before the programming.

Action:

[Clove will be waiting outside a room in the Battle Dome. She hasn't been sleeping, and it shows. She's also been skipping meals.

She has her Journal with her, and she's dressed for a fight. Tribute from head to toe, knives in her vest.]

Written:

[The next short message appears a few hours later.]

It gets so quiet here. Between missions and drafts, there's just nothing. That's the one thing I hate about this place. It gets too quiet.

Action:

[For most of the evening, Clove will be at her camp. She's turned up a little game to cook, and she's ignoring the cold as best she can. She considers, as she starts to really feel the nipping of winter, knocking on Katniss's door. She could probably sleep there to escape the cold and not go back to the apartment.

She's not sure she's ready to go back and face Cato yet.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Clove laughs. It's a sharp, harsh sound; fit for the Arena.

Would they have done this there? Stood on this edge? Or have they softened since coming here? Her for giving him an unarmed target, him for not going for the kill. Have they gotten weaker? Or iss this some sort of weird strength?]

Your call, Cato.

[She can feel it, equal parts Career and girl pulling in opposite directions. She's breathing hard, her eyes on fire. She's thirsty for blood, and she's terrified to kill. All at the same time.]

I pick up that knife, one of us dies.

[I've done it here already. I can do it again.

But he doesn't know about Twelve, about the blood in the forest.]

Come at me, I go for it.

[She doesn't know why she's giving him the power, the choice. Maybe because then, either way, it's not her fault.]

Your call, Cato.

[She doesn't dare to breathe.]

[Cato growls out of frustration, bears his teeth with it, heedless of the fact that he is shaking. All he can think about is that this could have been them in the Games. It could have come down to just them and there was so much that could have happened - but didn't.

And the sooner he accepts that the better.]

Fuck it. [He hisses and stabs his sword into the ground with a clang, the sound reverberating through the room - and it's like he suddenly remembers that this is a room. Not real.

As he releases his sword and looks down, he sees the ground glitching at the direct interference - and the broken pieces of the tip of his sword. It's not horribly damaged - salvageable, even. But the tip is now jagged and a good four inches off the top lies in sharp pieces on the ground.

Cato stares....clenches his fists and jaw so tight his teeth might start to crack before he lets out a wild, strangled cry and lunges at Clove. He bends at his waist, aiming to take her at her middle with his shoulder and to wrap his arms around her small frame.

Landing on top of her would only crush her and he doesn't want that - not with how she died, he thinks to himself. So he tucks his shoulder and rolls to his back with her on top of him.

He sure as shit isn't letting her go easily though.]

[More than anything, the sound disorients Clove. She's hyper focused, every muscle taut, every nerve strained. The sword goes down, there's a shout from him, and he moves. She's going down before she knows what's happening.

But her body works faster than her mind. She braces her arms between them to try and give herself some leverage, to protect her heart and neck. So, one hand frees a throwing knife from her vest, and she stabs. Once, twice into the stomach. She doesn't know if she's hit anywhere near anything vital. She just knows she's gotten a piece of flesh each time.

Her hand finds his chest, braces right near his heart, framing the target with her thumb and forefinger. Kill or be killed. Before she can make the fatal blow, however, reason catches up to instinct. She's preparing to stab down, not up. She isn't pinned against the ground, he's not trying to strangle her or bash her head in.

Clove freezes. Her only movement is the shaky rise and fall of her chest as she gasps for air. She isn't angry. That's not what's shining in her eyes now. She's afraid. And realization is slowly sinking in. The red of the knife, the boy under her.]

[He makes a noise like he's been gut-punched; a low, curt groan that accompanies a fists in the cloth he finds on her back. Fuck that hurts. The knife is really fucking cold, is what he registers first. And then he realizes he got a knife stuck in his gut.

He's just laying there under a very vicious girl who looks terrifying and determined, and he thinks for the moment she pauses in that she will do it. She could too. She could do it easily and be rid of him for at least a week. But then she stops, shaky breaths punctuating the silence and he's staring up at her with a look more befitting a surprised child than a Career.

Being stabbed didn't surprise him as much as he thought it would. It's just that she was really beautiful just then. And maybe that's shock talking but Cato really thinks so as he releases his grip in her shirt quickly, propping himself up when she doesn't prepare make that final stab down to get a look at his stomach.

The wounds aren't terribly bad. They look pretty small in the grand scheme of things and if they're bleeding already then they must not have gotten very deep. But. You never know with abdominal wounds - that's what their teacher always said.]

Ow.

[His shoulders start to shake. It's very slight at first, the motion so negligible that it could just be tremors...but after a second his mouth splits into a wobbly grin and he's laughing. Actually laughing. It's a weak, wet sound. Quiet compared to how loud he can roar with glee but it's ... not dying and he likes that too much to not laugh.]

Ow.

[She doesn't really hear the laughter. She just sees. She sees the knife in her hand. The blood on his stomach. Her hand on his chest. A moment ago, she had deadly intent, and she knows it. She was going to kill Cato without a thought, without any hesitation.

Same as Katniss in the forest.

Pin and stab. Keep stabbing until it stopped moving. Whatever it was under her. Whoever it was under her.

The viciousness that kept her alive so long in the Arena -- the fighting spirit she was taught from the time she joined the Academy... It terrifies her in that instant. Because it almost cost her the one thing that makes this place bearable. The one reason this is better than dying in the Games.

Clove sinks back, off her knees and onto the balls of her feet. The knife in her hand falls beside him, and she scurries back, wide-eyed. Her gasping has stopped. Now, the breaths barely come. She's shaking, staring at the wounds as her eyes water. Her mouth moves, but the words just barely sneak out.]

'm sorry. Cato... Cato, 'm sorry.

[He's trying to stifle himself because Clove is freaking out and it's painfully obvious he should shut the fuck up and tell her he's fine. He tries to do it quickly but faint, rapid-fire shudders ripple through him as he bites his mouth shut.

Talk you idiot.]

Clove. [Now another word.] Clove. It's fine. Seriously, it's fine.

[He ignores how much it fucking hurts to bend forward but he hides it well, smiling still but leaning forward - trying to look her in the eye.]

Clove, I'm fine.

[He never thought that focusing on another person would be more... cathartic than focusing on himself.]

[Luceti isn't real.

The months spent here, the fact that this is all simulation... none of it sticks in Clove's mind. She's as good as in the Arena.

All of Panem is watching. Waiting.

A moment of glory for a tribute, striking the final blow. Proving to District Two that she's strong enough to stand on her own. That she's ruthless enough to be a Victor. It's in her grasp.

And it means nothing.

Clove finds a sudden burst of movement, stripping off her jacket. Part of the lining is already ripped, so she tears it more. It's warm, thick fabric. The insulation to keep them from freezing to death during the increasingly cold nights. She moves forward and quickly as she'd gone back and pushes his shirt up enough to see the wounds, to put the torn fabric over them and press.

Apply pressure to the wound. Stop the bleeding.

Skills taught to be performed on herself, to save her life in the Arena. But they promised. The Capitol promised. If two tributes came from the same District, they could both win. They could both go home. They're supposed to go home together.

Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, she knows it's not real. There is no more home. Only the wound is real. But she keeps up the pressure even as the tears fall. All of Panem can see her crying as she tries to help undo what she's done.

What's worse?

Cato can see her crying.]

[Her movements are quick and jerky to him and it pulls him into her further - he doesn't want her to break like this but he's put starkly in the reality they occupy now by the throbbing in his abdomen. It keeps him grounded. Grounded enough to very easily see the tears falling from her eyes; completely unwanted.

He flinches only slightly at the pressure on his wounds, thoughts occupied by what he sees instead of what he feels.

It shouldn't make him happy to see them. But he is. Relieved, more like it. He thought she hated him. He doesn't try to dry her eyes or pull her into a hug, instead he places his hand over hers where it presses the jacket into his sticky shirt. In a way it's much more intimate than an embrace.]

Clove. Look at me?

I can't do this alone.

[The words are quiet, frightened. It's a seventeen-year-old girl speaking, not the Seventh-Fourth female tribute from District Two. Not the gold-armored Athena.

Her hand shakes under his, and the tears won't stop. Twelve provoked her. Shot an arrow at her, cut her face. Twelve picked the fight; she ended it. But this. This was her doing. She started this. If she loses Cato, it's her fault. No one else's.

If she loses him, she is alone.

The words almost aren't hers as she looks up at him, never letting up on the pressure. Whether she fears his dying or simply deciding that he's had enough, it's hard to say.]

Stay with me.

Please.

Don't make me do this alone.

[That wrenches at something inside Cato's chest, a physical tug and pull of something that makes him lose his breath for the briefest of moments. He has to make this right. Has to.

He doesn't know if this is going to trigger her into even more freaking out but he just...has to hold her right now. Cato scoots closer, cups the back of her head in his hand like it's something he does every day (he tries to) and mumbles as she cries.]

I'm not leaving. I won't, okay? I won't leave. Ever.

[It's fierce but quiet. It's meant for her ears only.]

We were supposed to go home.

[It bothers her. More so because... she isn't sure if they're better off not. In the world where Twelve and Lover Boy won? There are no more Hunger Games. Kids don't have to worry about that anymore.

But she won't get married in that world. She won't have a little girl to protect from the horrors of the Arena.]

We were so close.

[Clove buries her head in the crook of his neck, not daring to release the pressure of the cloth against his stomach.]

'm sorry. We were so close.

It's fine.

[Does he wish things could have been different? Of course; he'd have to be foolish not to. But he'd much rather be here and alive than dead. It isn't anyone's fault but his that they didn't win. They had a plan, a strategy and it all went to shit because he wasn't ready for Thresh or the mutts. He was (still is) an arrogant little shit and then he went crazy.

Happy Hunger Games.]

We wouldn't have made it. [They would have ripped one another apart and he's sure of it. Even if they had won the Games, they would have been taken from one another. Both of them would have been forced into things they didn't want. They would have wished for death every time they closed their eyes.

So what, he wondered, was better? Dying and saving yourself the pain of living? Or surviving and having a life?]

[Even in the Malnosso-created fiction... they hadn't been free. Constrained to their roles of happy couple, a child to make sure Panem always saw them as a pair. Another expected soon, just in case.

They can't -- not for a moment -- prefer to think of you separately over apart. The words of Ariadne, whispered before the "surprise" proposal during the Victor interview. If you are ever anything less than their Golden Pair, you'll both wish you were dead.

Here... There are only shifts and drafts. Temporary disturbances to their mental states. But they don't have to watch every gesture and every word. But it could be over in a second. Cato could be gone, like Katniss's Lover Boy. Only he wouldn't be going back to the Games or back to Panem. He'd just be gone.

Clove shudders in his arms and presses further against him, forcing herself to hold the cloth steady.]

I... I'm scared. [She hates saying it. But it has to be said, doesn't it?] I'm always so scared here, Cato.

[He doesn't want to say this, dear God he wishes he didn't feel like he had to. But she's bearing herself to him and if he doesn't do the same....things will never get better between them. Only worse and worse until they can't stand to look at one another.

He rubs her hair down and is silent for a while before he shamefully admits:]

Me too.

[It's possibly the most quiet he's ever been before. It scares him to say it out loud. Like it's the ultimate crime, and he doesn't want to be caught.]

[The sound is unmistakable:
a sob.

Clove buries her head further into his neck and wraps her arms around him, forgetting for a moment about the compress to his stomach. She holds onto his shoulder and behind his head, trembling twice as much as a fresh wave of tears fall against the skin just above his collar.

She has to cry. Because it's a relief, and she hates that it's a relief. He shouldn't be frightened, but if he is... If he is, then he can't hate her for it. He can't be too disappointed in her, think she's gotten too weak. Wonder if she's always been too weak.

If he's scared... maybe that's okay. Maybe she really is allowed to be, too.]

[It helps him to know that he can do this for her. Just...be able to hold her and not try to hurt her behind her back. It helps to know that she trusts him like he trusts her.

With his admission, Cato remains silent. Lets her hear his heartbeat if she can and just...holds her.

He wishes this could happen more often. Minus the bleeding. And the crying.]

[Clove takes a deep breath, raises her head, then pulls back. Just a bit. Enough to see his ripped shirt and push it up to see the marks in the skin, the blood. Savage... but not too deep.

She has to fight not to start crying again.]

I stopped.

[It's almost surprise, the way she says it. Because she is surprised. Somehow, she's learned to temper herself. Even just a little bit. But it's better than last time she had someone down. Last time she had a knife in her hand against a fellow tribute.

A shudder passes through her as she tries not to question what she'd have done if she hadn't stopped. She did. So it doesn't matter what she might have done. She didn't do it.]

[It's only a thought in his head but when she says 'I stopped' Cato realizes...he did too. He hadn't been thinking when he moved to tackle her but he had been thinking when he had his arms around her and she was sinking her knife into him - if he hadn't stopped from following through with it, she could be dead.

They both stopped and that lifts something in him. He doesn't want to analyze it for fear it'll go away but he feels better. His palm cupping her whole head and he hums, quietly.]

You did good.

[He's happy she's stopped crying too.]

[Clove slumps forward, leaning against him again. She can't help asking the question.]

Did I?

[Is this good? Or is this becoming weak?

If she cares too much about him, it could get her killed. They always look out for themselves first. They're Careers. What happens if that goes away?

What is she then?]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

13th Throw - [ action / written ]

action:

action:

action:

action:

action:

action:

action:

action:

action:

action:

action:

action:

action:

action:

action:

action:

action:

action:

action: