a/n; i've been suffering from clato deprivation and i wrote this to cure that. this is also part of livvi's (bisexual stiles) birthday gift because i'm still working on the sterek. :) this really doesn't make munch sense, um, and there's, a lot of swear. like A LOT. seriously. i don't own anything.
WARNING: teenage drunkenness; underage sex; awkward times; possible death from fangirl-itis; language.
did you fall for a shooting star?
cato/clove
To be quite honest, she doesn't know where they stand right now.
The night is sultry and tangy on her face as the sound of the beach fills her ears and somewhere in the distance, she can see the faint firelight of a beach campfire where two lovebirds are talking — or, you know, doing a bit more than talking. It fills her with fury and she wants to yell that them to stop being so damn annoyingly cute but that wouldn't really solve anything.
She knows who she needs to talk to; she just simply doesn't want to talk to him. She doesn't want to go up to him and drag him away from his latest fuck-buddy — Glimmer Rochester, her former best friend — and ask him where they stand.
Because, honestly, she doesn't know anymore. One minute his mouth is hot and desperate on hers as he attacks her lips and he's murmuring incoherent sentences like, "Not a disgrace" and "Don't need you" and he's pushing her into the mattress and oh God there's blood everywhere but she likes it and —
The next minute, they see each other in the hallway and don't even acknowledge each other; pretending that their nighttime secrets and insecurities never happened. "Yo, Davis." It's Marvel, Cato's second in command, "Cato's lookin' for ya'."
"I thought he was with his fuck-buddy." Her voice betrays no emotion.
Marvel smirks, "Apparently she's a screamer. They're done. I guess now it's my turn." Clove wrinkles her nose in disgust, honestly.
Clove tries to remain nonchalant as Marvel gouges her reaction but her hands are sweaty and shaking and she doesn't know why he's looking for her now of all times but she can do it; she knows she can. "Whatever, Everett." Marvel nods once, almost like he's some sort of diplomat, and re-enters the party.
There is a blast of loud noise for the brief seconds that the door is open and Clove breathes in another gulp of fresh air; her last gulp of fresh air, she gets the feeling.
/
She doesn't even know why she goes to these parties, to be quite honest, she kind of hates the whole atmosphere of dozens of drunk kids grinding up against her and the smell of coke and rum and vodka filling her nostrils and, later on, the sickening stench of vomit. And yet, party after party, she goes to. And it's not like she needs to be there to boost her popularity, either — she's a Career and, yeah, they're kind of the biggest deal in Panem high school. Anyone that basically wants to be anyone or have any sort of power either is a Career or is friends with a Career.
She finds Cato by the drinks table — where else? — mixing a possibly lethal combination of Coke, Rum, and Spirit into a bottle and shaking it before adding a drop of lime juice. Clove wrinkles her nose at the smell, tapping her foot to let Cato be aware of his presence. He still pretends not to notice, though, too busy putting on a show for his admirers; this is something she can understand — being a Career is all about putting on a show; pretending that you are the best so that other people begin to believe it, too.
/
"Hurry the fuck up, Roosevelt, I don't have all fucking night," she snaps ten minutes later when he's still not done the obnoxious drink. Cato's loyal army of fangirls glare at Clove, as if talking back to Cato is a travesty that should be punishable by death but, frankly, Clove doesn't give two fucks.
"Calm your tits, Davis," Cato snaps back at her, but he hands the still unfinished drink to the nearest girl and grab Clove by her skinny wrist into the corner.
Clove tries to take deep breaths, reminding herself that she wanted to see Cato — that she wanted to know exactly where they stood, whether it is frenemies with benefits or whatever.
"Scram," he mutters to a group of pimply-faced sophomores, obviously in awe of their first high school party. They comply immediately — just because they are younger doesn't mean that they haven't heard of the power that Cato Roosevelt holds of the school.
Once the sophomores are gone, Cato turns around to face Clove and, for a second, she is breathless. There, with the blue bar lights reflecting just slightly off his messy blond hair and hazel eyes, he almost looks like an angel. And then she blinks and the illusion is gone and the horns and tail are back. Cato doesn't say anything to her, seemingly as content with drinking in her features as she is with him, until, finally, she musters up the courage to speak.
"Okay, Roosevelt, I was having . . . uh . . . a wonderful time before Marvel showed his ugly mug and said you wanted to see me and you don't even say a word to me. The fuck?" Clove snaps, finally bored of this silent game that they're playing. Her mind is telling her to ask him — just to say four simple words; where do we stand? But her heart, with its erratic pounding, is screaming for silence and her heart wins.
"I want to fuck you," Cato says finally, baldly. Clove looks up, startled. This is the first time that he's ever said it so . . . openly; they've never even discussed it before. "I want to feel your body under me, I want to hear you shriek my name, I want to be the reason that you blush when someone asks if you had a good weekend."
Clove does not look down, she is not afraid. She just wishes that her heart would believe her mind and start beating normally again. "And what if I don't want to?" Her voice is a taunt, daring him to his extremes; she wants to know his answer. No, she has to know his answer.
"You do," Cato says confidently, "Otherwise, you would never have agreed in the first place."
For the first time since the confrontation, Clove blushes. "I — I do not!" But they both know that she's lying.
"Denial is not just a river in Egypt," Cato says with a smirk, "Abraham Lincoln was a smart man."
"That was Mark fucking Twain, idiot," she mutters.
"Doesn't matter. What matters is that I want you. Right here. Right now." His voice doesn't even waver when he says this; his eyes just rove up and down her body. Clove pauses, she knows that, perhaps, fucking the school's man-whore, who won't even admit their relationship, may not be the best idea, but her mind and heart don't work in synchrony whenever he's around.
"Here? Now? There are people here," she hisses, "this is bold, even for you, Cato."
"No one will remember on Monday," he says dismissively, "And besides, I want everyone to know that you're mind — and only mine."
"Oh?" Clove raises an eyebrow, "So you can fuck the entire school but I can only be with you?"
"Yep," he says, popping the 'p' as if this is the most ordinary deal ever made.
"And again, what if I don't agree?" Clove leans in closer, until she and Cato are almost nose to nose and she can smell his musky scent, like a cocktail of drinks and lime. Cato, of course, takes advantage of the situation, and kisses her.
/
Or, he attached his lips to hers and she didn't have the willpower to let go. His lips are worm and rough and he doesn't take his time with her, roughly pushing their faces together and the pressure of his lips is the only thing keeping her upright now.
She pulls away to gasp for air, and Cato glares at her. She smirks, glancing down at the slightly noticeable bulge in his pants — it seems like she's got the upper hand now. She takes a step back from him, just as he takes a step forward. "Nope," she says with a sadistic smirk that's telling him that he's enjoying this way too much, "Now you listen to me."
He growls a feral growl that rips through his throat and Clove shudders, thinking that, in another universe, he could have been some kind of mass murderer. "Fuck you, Davis."
"You never will if you keep talking to me like that," she says sweetly, giving him a sickeningly cute smile that could rot candy.
"I . . . swear to . . . fucking God, Davis — " Cato mutters, moving closer towards her. Clove's lips twitch upwards into a small smile, "I need you."
"Not here," Clove leans in until he can practically kiss her, and then she is gone, just out of reach. "Come with me."
/
They go to the nearest room, which happens to be the guest bedroom and the door is locked and bolted before Clove has even turned around. Clove opens her mouth to ask the fateful; question — where do we stand? — when, once again, his lips are on hers and she's too lazy to protest.
His lips trace lightning trails up her skin and she swears that it will leave a mark; his lips attack her neck and other places, "You'll . . . have . . . a hard . . . time . . . hiding these," he smirks between nips.
She groans — both from pleasure and annoyance.
They don't say anything to each other for the rest of the night, just occasional moans and cries and she lets him fuck her into the mattress so hard that she thinks her body will be imprinted onto the bed forever, almost like some sort of permanent statue. At some point, he starts crying when he's fucking her and his tears fall onto her face and she doesn't say anything at all, just lets Cato cry for something that she'll never really know about.
After he's finally done, he doesn't whisper "I love you" or sweet nothings into her ear but somehow, her hands find his under the duvet and he grabs on and they stay like that all night.
/
She wakes up with a headache, which is kind of strange because she drank, like, one wine cooler last night and she can hold her drinks, usually, but for those first, disorienting seconds after she wakes up, when the world is still fuzzy and nothing makes sense but everything does, at the same the same time are the easiest. She's aware of the pressure on the right side of the bed, and of the hand clasping onto hers like it's his anchor and she tries to remember the events of last night.
Her phone beeps, showing that she got three messages — two from Katniss Everdeen, her fellow Track team member, and one from her mother. She presses ignore on all of them and tries to calm her breathing. She can feel Cato stirring from under her and for once, she wishes that the world would just stay the same and the world would just, like, stop turning for one minute so that she could just breathe, but of course, the world keeps moving and Cato's eyes flutter open and —
"'Morning." His voice is dull and sleepy, almost innocent sounding. "Clove . . . "
She feels her breath catch in her throat as she looks at Cato, the golden streaks of sunlight making his face seemingly glow from within, "Cato," she says, and she's surprised that her voice is not shaking, "We need to talk —"
"No talking," he manages to grunt, looking up at her with golden lashes. She twirls a lock of raven black hair around her pale finger and stares at him with narrowed eyes.
"You can't avoid me — us — forever, Cato," she hisses, staring down at him. "You can't just fuck me and not expect an explanation!"
Cato stares at her like she's dumb and she's suddenly struck by the urge to smack that stupid look off his face, "Uh — yes, Davis, I can."
She grits her teeth. "Just tell me; are we, like, together or something?"
He doesn't look away from her gaze, enraptured in her dark eyes, "Of course we are. You're right next to me, aren't you?" He purposefully misunderstands the question.
"That's not what I meant," she snaps, glaring down at him, "I'm serious. Are we a couple?"
"Nope," he says, popping the 'p', finally answering her question like it's as meaningless as asking for the weather. "We fuck; we go our own ways. Done."
For some reason, although she's really suspected that it was nothing more than that the whole time, it still kind of hurts but she tries to ignore the feeling of a knife twisted in her gut and stabbed her repeatedly. "But —"
"Don't you get it, Davis? We are nothing to each other. I fuck you because — because . . . I do, okay?" he's yelling now, and she wouldn't be surprised if the whole neighbourhood hears them but she doesn't even care right now. "We're — this; whatever you consider 'us' to be — is just a game to me, nothing else."
"Fine, then," she finds herself yelling, ignoring the salty rivulets of tears streaming down her face, "We are done!"
"We were never anything to begin with!" he replies, lying through his teeth. He won't admit that Clove means something to him, because every time he does, he loses her all over again. It's easier this way. "You're — you're nothing to me, Davis."
/
Clove doesn't bother to look at him anymore, instead choosing to focus on the green and white stitching of the duvet as if it holds the secrets of the universe. "I'm gone, then."
No, please, wait, stay, he wants to say. He want to hold her and never let her go; but he can't so he just shrugs and says, "Bye."
(She goes home and makes onion and beef stir-fry so that when her parents come home, she has an excuse for her puffy, red eyes.)
/
She doesn't contact anyone from school all weekend, just stays up in her room and tears up all the photos of her and Cato — not that she had a lot, okay? — so she's slightly surprised that, on Monday morning, her mother calls, "Clove, Katniss is here to drive you!" before school.
Clove stomps down the stairs, pausing to grab a granola bar from the kitchen, "Hi, Everdeen." Katniss is not her friend, not really, but they're on the Panem High track-and-field team together so they've come up with some sort of truce, and, for now at least, they don't want to kill each other. She doesn't know exactly when they came to this agreement; that Katniss would pick her up on Monday mornings before track, but she supposes that it's because her house is on the way.
Clove isn't in the mood to talk today, and neither is Katniss, so it is with silence that they pull down Clove's driveway. Finally, Katniss says, "Do you want a coffee?"
Clove shakes her head, a smirk making its way across her face, "Nope. Coach Abernathy hates it when we eat anything for an hour before track, remember?"
Katniss smiles, too, "Says the most drunken man I've ever met!" Clove laughs, and she forgets for a second, Cato's rejection. "Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen him sober."
"Neither have I," Clove admits with a giggle. They fall into a comfortable silence for the rest of the ride to school and when they get out, they join their fellow track team members as they warm up for the race.
"Hi, Katniss, Clove!" their teammate, Lavinia, asks, giving both girls a smile. Katniss nods in greeting but Clove leaves them to talk while she stretches, alone. She loves track, she does; it's her only chance in the day to step back and breathe and, for those few minutes that she's racing around the track, there is nothing on her mind other than the wind racing through her hair and the cold chill of the spring air chilling her bones, the sound of her shoes pounding on the pavement and her mind o=counting down the yards left in the race. It'll keep her mind off a certain Roosevelt that she's, like, totally, not thinking of him right now.
"Okay, heats; first up is Davis, Caesar, Martin, Everdeen, and . . . McGregor," Coach Abernathy slurs, taking a swig from a bottle of Jack Daniels and giving a loud belch. Katniss rolls her eyes at Clove but neither look surprised. "Oh, and here's some advice: don't be the slowest person alive; there is a meet next week and for many of you, it's the last meet of the year."
Clove checks her shoelaces and takes a deep breath before crouching into starting position; she can do it — she's done this hundreds of time, and she shouldn't be nervous.
"Wait — is that Roosevelt?" she hears from beside her. Her neck turns like a shot towards Kate McGregor, the competitor to her left.
"What did you say, McGregor?" Clove hisses, but Kate doesn't respond because Coah Abernathy has finally found his whistle and he blows it and Clove is too distracted so she misses the starting point.
She begins running, but she's thinking that Cato is here and watching her — or he could be watching someone else, she knows, but she doesn't want to think that way — and it's kind of unnerving so she only comes in third.
"Good job," the other teammates say, patting her on the back as she walks back to the team.
"What happened, Davis?" Katniss mouths at her, but Clove doesn't want to answer.
/
"What the hell?" she snaps at him, pushing him against her locker with a bony arm that is much stronger than it looks.
"What do you mean?" he shoots back, "And can you, like, back away? Honestly, you're fucking choking me, Davis!" His eyes are pleading for freedom but Clove feels the urge to bash his face in.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," she says sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "Wait; I'm not, idiot. Why the hell are you here?" He gives her a weak smile, as if he's expecting her to, like, drop everything and run into his arms like some fairy-tale prince but she is not going to do that, honestly. She'll never admit it but when he rejected her on Saturday — it hurt; it hurt a lot.
"I — wanted — to — see you," he sputters out between cough. His face is turning dark red now, and his breaths are coming out in short little gasps. Clove briefly muses that she should let him go but it's so much easier to just let him slowly gasp for air. Of course, he looks seriously in danger of dying, now, so she (reluctantly) lets him go.
Cato gulps down air like it's the best thing he'd ever had in his life, "You're a fucking madman," he growls, running a hand through his messy blond hair, "Women. You can't understand 'em." He stops rubbing his throat and begins glaring reproachfully at Clove, who seems unaffected.
(Okay, she was affected but she knows that showing weakness won't do her any good.) "You didn't answer my question," she mumbles, running a hand through her hair, now cooled by the early morning wind. "What are you doing here?" Her heart is pumping, waiting or a response, and yet her brain is unoptimistic; she reminds herself to breathe.
"I want to talk to you," he begins. The sun is glinting off her face and she suddenly feels nauseous, as if she's thinking of that Saturday morning, the one where he rejected "them"; she suddenly realizes, by how her mouth has gone dry, that she doesn't want to hear what he has to say (read: she doesn't want to be hurt again).
"I don't care what you have to say," she finds herself muttering, glaring up at the taller boy. "I don't. We are done."
She forces her feet to move past him, away from her team and Cato and all the troubles of being a senior. She kind of misses the days where anyone with a 96 pack of Crayola and a juice box became your best friends.
/
She's sitting in her Vectors and Calculus class, not paying attention to whatever the teacher is talking about (besides, she's already got a full ride at Penn State next year) when Peeta Mellark, Katniss' somewhat friend pokes her in the back. "What the fuck do you want, Mellark?"
"You're friends with Katniss, right?" he asks, looking away like he's scared of her answer.
Clove mulls over the question, "Uh . . . I guess. Why?"
He blushes, turning red, "I was — uh — wondering if — uh — Katniss mentioned me or something."
She raised an eyebrow at the blond boy, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips, "Oh, are you a couple or something? She didn't mention it in the ride, or at track." She feels like of bad when she sees Peeta visibly deflate, and she wonders where Katniss and Peeta are — that awkward stage between friendship and romance that no one really knows how to navigate.
Peeta tries to put on a brave face, failing miserably, "It doesn't matter, anyway, Clove. I've waited years for her to even acknowledge my presence, I'll wait for her."
"There are other girls in the school," Clove points out, raising an eyebrow. She doesn't even know why she's talking to Peeta, just that it's must more interesting than Calc any day. For the first time since she ran the track this morning, her mind isn't on Cato and it's almost sweet relief.
"There are no other Katniss'," Peeta argues, "I've tried dating other girls, but I've never felt the same way for anyone. It's almost like she's a flame and I'm the moth."
Clove bites her tongue to keep herself from saying that it's almost the same way she feels about Cato.
/
They're forced to spend lunch together.
She's never hated the fact that Peeta is, like, in love with Katniss until now. As usual, Cato, Marvel, Finnick, and Peeta approach their table and Clove looks for a quick escape.
"Actually, I — " she begins, trying to think of a lightning fast excuse to get out here but Katniss is staring at Peeta and deaf to everything in the world and Annie is busy trying to glare holes into the back of Finnick's head.
"Hey, ladies," FInnick says, nodding down at them with a wink. Katniss is still in Peeta-land, but Annie merely glares at him while Clove tries not to hyperventilate.
Katniss and Peeta are discussing a movie they are planning to see over the weekend and Finnick is talking to a reluctant Annie about an upcoming swim meet. Clove can't look up because Cato might be staring at her — or he might not — and she honestly doesn't know which will be worse.
"I heard the weirdest thing in my chemistry class today," Marvel interrupts the chatter suddenly, "About Davis."
"I don't know what's more surprising; the fact that there's a rumour about Davis or the fact that you went to class," Peeta mutters.
Almost imperceptibly, she sees Cato perk up but no – she's not looking there, she's not looking there, really.
"What?" Clove asks, her mouth suddenly dry.
"Apparently"—Marvel takes a bite of his sandwich—"you hooked up with Gloss Jewel in the school pool."
Cato discreetly sputters his food, "As if. Davis could do way better than that."
Clove is torn between amusement and anger as Cato defends her because, God, why does he have to send so many mixed messages?
"Like me," Marvel says, "And that's what I told them."
"Gee, thanks . . . " Clove mutters drily.
Speaking of strange couples, do you think the rumours are true?" Finnick asks after a short silence, picking at his fries.
Katniss, Annie, and Clove exchange looks, sensing a trap — Finnick is the most popular guy at school, if there's a rumour, he'd be the first to know. Clove can feel Cato's eyes on her, burning holes through her head and into her brain, reading every thought.
"What rumours?" Annie asks, finally glancing up at Finnick. Finnick gives her his famous grin which Annie rolls her eyes at.
"About Brutus Manson and Enobaria Coleman; apparently they're getting married this summer. I'm mean, Enobaria? Been there, done that; so not worth it." Finnick grins at the males and exchanges smirks with Marvel; Annie stabs her plate of pasta with unwonted venom.
"Pfft, I didn't waste my time with her." Cato looks up for the first time all lunch, right at Clove, and she tries not to look away. "No one at this school is worth my time."
Clove gasps inaudibly and her face goes white because he did not just say that and Finnick mutters, "Not cool, man," while Peeta nods, and she yells, "Hey, Roosevelt, you know who's really not worth it? You, because it's liking doing a baby."
And Finnick laughs and laughs and Peeta hides his chuckle and Finnick falls off his chair and Marvel smirks and the cafeteria goes silent and Cato turns pale and she has to run before the tears start —
She gets up from the table before Katniss says a word and this time, she knows that no one will stop her.
/
She escapes to the girls' bathroom just before the tears start rolling. She doesn't know why she's crying — after all, she's Clove Davis and she's invincible and an ice queen and just because some idiot named Cato Roosevelt looked at her when he said that no one in the school was worth his time didn't mean that she had to turn into a sobbing wreck.
She washes her face to restore its skin tone when the door opens. "Get out — Roosevelt." It's lucky that she's a good actress.
Cato pushes her against the bathroom mirror just like she pushed him onto the lockers not so long ago. "Listen, Davis, we need to talk."
Clove glares at him and tries not to think of how hot and heavy his body is on hers and how it reminds her of long, hot kisses and clothes ripping and hands that are everywhere and nowhere and speaking their problems into each other's skin —
She forces herself to breathe. "I don't want to talk to you, Roosevelt. I'm done with all this."
He runs his hands through his blonde hair in that way that makes Clove want to strangle him and mutters, "I'm a dick."
"No shit," Clove murmurs with a dark chuckle. "Are we done here? I have a class."
"Just shut the fuck up and listen to me, Davis!" he yells, punctuating the sentence with a smack against the wall. "I'm trying to tell you that I'm fucked up and I use you and you kind of deserve better than that but I'm too selfish to let you go . . . because you're kind of the only person in this world that I can believe in."
Clove stares at him; the world stops. She tries to keep her breathing even. "Oh."
"And I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry I got you messed up in this and I'm sorry that I kind of fell in love with you, and—."
"Roosevelt, shut up," Clove hisses, "What the fuck are you saying?" Because no it can't be true; he can't be admitting that he's kind of in love with her and that would mean that she'd have to face her feelings, too.
He takes a deep breath, scowling. "I want to give us a chance."
OH MY GOD —
She's having more difficulty breathing now and Cato is staring down at her and their lips are only a few inches apart. "I don't want to be just some toy."
He growls in frustration, "Don't you get it? I like you."
"It's not that simple!" she argues, glaring back up at him. "I don't know if I'm ready . . . "
"Then just give us a chance," his voice is soft now.
She hesitates. She thinks of their fights, the days where Cato was attached to Glimmer at the lips, the days where they were nothing. But then she thinks of watching horror movies late at night, the days where he texts her for no reason at all, the way he brightens when she talks to him.
She isn't ready to make a choice —
"I'll think about it."
/
"So — do you, uh, want to go to prom with me, Clove?" he asks, eyes piercing her, dissecting her into little bits and pieces. "You're kind of the coolest person in this hellhole. Plus. We get to have great sex afterwards."
She has to bite her lip to keep from smiling like an idiot, "Well . . . I suppose I have nothing else to do." However, a small smile is slowly rising and getting more and more full until it's a full-blown Heath Ledger smile and he kind of thinks that she looks beautiful like that.
"Good," he says with a smirk, "because I wasn't giving you an option. And besides, every girl in the school would kill to be my date."
Clove rolls her eyes but she's smiling because this is what her relationship with Cato should have been from the beginning. "Whatever you want to believe."
"They would!"
"Sure . . . "
"It's true!"
/
fin
a/n: please don't favourite or alert (although idk why as it's obviously a oneshot) without reviewing