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colors <clato>

"Who am I?" Cato asked me. His eyes were full of some sort of emotion. Broken. He's fidgeting with his hands, twisting the blades of grass.

"What do you mean?"

"Clove, we lived a lie! We killed all those people!"

"But we won, Cato! We won!"

He sighed, putting his hand on his head. "I know. But did we really win? I feel like we just survived."

"We did what we had to do."

"No, Clove, who would we be? Without the Capitol, training, the Games? All of it?"

Oh my gosh. I'd never thought about that. Who would we be?

"Please, Clove. Just tell me who I am."

I take a deep breath. "Okay," I begin. "You're Cato Alexander Hadley. You..." I trail off. I would say something about how good he is with a sword, or how he can make a fire with nothing but old scraps of cloth and wood. Things he learned in training. But this isn't what he wants. I know it isn't.

I know his favorite color, though. Maybe that's a place to start.

"Your favorite color is blue. Not royal blue, but ice blue." I remember him telling me this once before, somewhere I can't quite place. "Like the color of frost shimmering on the lake in winter. We would run out onto the lake and play on the ice."

"Remember when I fell in?"

"You were soaking wet!" Cato laughs a little. "Now what's mine? My favorite color, I mean."

"Clove Isabelle Kentwell, your favorite color is dark red, like roses."

"Roses are white, though, Cato!"

"In the Capitol. In the Districts, roses are red. Wild roses."

"Wow. I'd like to see one of those."

"You would? In spring, they will come out and bloom. Just for you, Clove. You said you liked red because it reminded you of blood."

"Killing?"

"No, strength. Family. Passion. Blood doesn't always bring death. It brings life, too."

"Wow, Cato. That's deep." He leans over and kisses me hard on the lips. He's done it a few times since we got back from the Games, really started dating or whatever. His lips are dry, and taste like stone, only sweeter.

"Is this deeper?" He asks, as he pulls away.

I cringe at his bad joke and swat his hand away playfully, which gives him an excuse to put his other arm around me. I shift my weight ever so slightly, so that I'm leaning on him. He pushes my head down until it's resting in his lap. It's then that I see what he's been doing with his hands. He's woven grass and little wildflowers into a long circular crown.

"Queen Clove," he says, setting it on my head.

"Are you King Cato, then?" I ask, smiling.

"Only if you want me to be," he says, mock-bowing.

"I do," I say. I love Cato so much. The Games, everything, he's been there. He's funny and warm and brave. Not the killer that the Capitol turned him into.

"Clove, you're so beautiful. When I saw you in the interviews, wearing that beautiful peachy orange dress, my heart just about stopped. And then Girl on Fire came in and stole your show."

"I don't care about what those shallow Capitol people think. I only care about you."

"Well, I thought you looked amazing. But for me, you look even better when you're you. Training, or hunting, or just... playing, I guess. We've got about fifteen years of childhood to make up.

"Well, what would I do if I kissed the little boy?"

"He'd probably run away and scream 'cooties'!" Cato says.

"You know what?" I say, almost in a whisper. "I don't care." Our lips find each other, a quick peck, and then again, stronger. I can see the colors in his eyes swirling around. Reflecting the green of the field, the grey of the mountains, the blue of the sky.

Maybe colors are a good place to start. After all, they're so beautiful that nothing will ever take them away.

Well, this is my first try at writing fluff! It's hard to get the dynamic just right between Cato and Clove. Cato's so funny, but also agressive and often hard to reach. He's insecure about himself and about his relationship with Clove. Clove's more confident, but also firey and blunt. Clato is my absolute Hunger Games OTP. I wrote this AU of them actually winning, because I thought they deserved at least one happy ending.