Sam had been missing for an hour.

What happened had happened and Sam had survived. He'd gotten out of the water and didn't die. Nothing bad was going to happen. And then...he left. Just like that. No words. No warning. Just blue lips and a frozen heart leaving their small hideout. The fire was burning low and Pavement's stomach ached and growled. He desperately desired to get up and go after Sam, but instead he sat there, waiting.

Waiting, as he always did.

Pavement often found that he didn't like to do things that he should. He was supposed to like to kill and attack and be laughing his ass off the entire arena...and while he found it easy to laugh, for the majority of the time, and easy to kill, he didn't find his jollies there the way he should. He wasn't happy just going around and winning. A plate was the only way to describe him, a piled high Capitol plate fixed with all the workings and nothing else. He wanted to go and do things but there wasn't anything exciting or hard for him to do. Killing was too easy. He had thrown away his sword because he simply didn't want to kill with it anymore.

Pavement wanted excitement. He wanted the thrill of dying. He wanted someone, anyone, to hurt him in ways unimaginable. He wanted to watch with pleasure as the life drained from them and he was left the sole winner. Instead, he got a cold arena and a boy who left him far too often. The snow glinted far too bright and it hurt his eyes and his muscles were beginning to feel sore from not having anything to do. The more he waited for Sam the worse it became. Life, in itself, was a blur of emotion and confusion that bothered Pavement. In his hands was the hilt of a dagger, the metal cold to the touch but the handle soft and pleasing.

Before, he'd just been a person. Nothing was beyond him. He was strong, handsome, and every single soul loved him.

Now...Pavement didn't know what he was.

"A barren tomb is now my grave," he muttered. The words fluttered past like the snow did, glistening and glowing in ways only plastic can. It was fake. It had to be fake. Nothing so beautiful could be real. "All alone, just as I am, and no one can fix me. What am I? Who am I?"

Great, he thought, this is the perfect fucking time to be having an identity crisis!

"Paul Afflvement."

He jumped.

"Pauly."

He flinched.

"Paula Mintybutt," they said, their voice delectably low and saucy, "it's a wonder to see you alive. I thought after that little accident that you'd be dead."

Pavement's voice was a quiver, "Sam?"

Bells rang throughout the arena--a giggle of love and hatred all in one. He didn't dare turn around and she if she were truly there. Just hearing her feet crunching through the snow and her voice in the atmosphere was enough. She's alive? No, no...she can't be here. She can't be. Pavement's body shook and he didn't know if he should run or just wait for her apparition to leave him be.

"Who else would I be? Oh, babe," she purred, reaching out and placing a lone hand on his right shoulder, "I'm so happy to see you again. It's such a crying shame that you had to kill me."

"I didn't."

She laughed. "Why, if you didn't kill me, what would I be now? Thank you. Truly, it's a pleasure to see you again. I see you don't have any real weapons on you. What a shame. How do you plan to win if not with your weapons?"

"I didn't kill you."

"The past is in the past," she told him.

Pavement turned to her in a fury of passion and longing, "I didn't kill you!" His voice cracked and tears bit into his frostbitten cheeks. They fell and fell until her soft, red painted nails wiped them away. Her thumb was softer than any touch. "Sammy, it was--it--I didn't, I promise, I--you were-"

She cut off his blubbering with a kiss to the cheek. White foamed from her mouth into the air, her breath warmer than most. She'd always been the warmest in the room. "It was a training accident. Your bullet got my heart and my blank hit your face. I didn't even feel it," she said. Her voice was a breathless whisper. The hairs on his body stood on end. She's alive. I'm not alone. "I'm alive, Paul. I'm here. I'm not mad at you. I forgive you if you can only truly see me, Paul. Open your eyes and see me."

Dark flashed and they opened, instantly widening. She was right. He couldn't see her before. No, Pavement had only seen the dorky girlfriend of two years that had sent him secret love letters and who had kissed him mouth on mouth. The girl with braids in her hair and a gun always in her hand. The girl who'd stolen his heart. The girl he'd loved. The girl he'd killed.

That wasn't her--not anymore. She was older, eighteen now, and her long brown hair had been chopped off at an uneven pixie cut. Her green eyes stared into his like crystals that could only be worn on a queen. Her body had transformed from the boyish figure he'd liked to an over-sexualized feminine one with more curves than he could handle. It took his breath away, but the sharp eyes were all he could see. Pavement knew those eyes. They here hers and she was his again, alive and pure.

"Sammy," he said, unable to say more. There was a knot in his throat that made it hard to swallow. "Sammy..."

Whispering, she scratched her nails lightly under his chin, saying, "Come here, big boy."

Sam's lips met his in a fury of passion and his hands tangled in Sam's hair. The soft browns melted into one another and he groaned lowly, feeling his body warm up in Sam's presence. Everything was warm with her and he longed for so much more. She gave it to him through her mouth, kissing his lips fiercely and then moving onto his chin and biting down on the skin there in teasing nibbles.

"I love you," he whispered. He didn't care if everyone knew. The truth was the truth. "I love you. God, I love you."

A moan was his only response but he took it gladly. Anything from her was everything. Commander of his world, Sam always stood at the back of his memory, her words propelling him whenever spoken. All his life he tried to drown out her memory and forget she existed at all. Yet he surrounded himself with her--going as far as finding someone almost like her.

Pavement didn't know who he was. A senseless killer? A victim in a tragic accident? A misfire child locked away in a desert of emotions where his only oasis was burning? She's alive...god, I didn't screw up. I didn't. She's fine. She's alive. Not...mad. Happy. She missed me.

Pain came and he ignored it. Old cuts could rot for all he cared. He could rot for all he cared. It grew in pricks that coated his fingers and they fumbled with her shirt, unable to move as the skin burnt and sizzled. The cold bit into him and egged it on as a growl rose in his throat.

"Having trouble?" she muttered, her lips sucking on his neck and distracting him.

He shook his head, trying to rid his thoughts and the pain. Nothing mattered but her. She was his life. Pavement had lost her once but that didn't matter--nothing else mattered, not winning, not Sam, not anything. He was consumed. Living words empowered by her every touch. Sensuality at its finest was woven into his skin and bled out in the liquid pain that radiated throughout him. Faster, faster, faster he went, trying to ignore it as he fumbled her shirt off and continued to kiss her when her lips reached his again.

"Am I hurting you?" She muttered words against his lips the way a singer did to a microphone. It broke his tender mercies and tore his soul apart with a gasp. Spots of skin tore off as her teeth ripped through them. Wrinkles and rot appeared before he could fully comprehend what they were. "Don't fight it."

"What-"

"It'll only hurt for a moment. Then an eternity. We'll both be dead and out of this arena," she whispered. Her breath sparked the air in white angelic kisses. "Come with me, Pauly. Please. I need you. You can't let me die again again. You can't."

"Sammy-"

"Paul, don't fight it. Don't."

Her voice was intoxicating. It was almost possible to forget the pain. An arena of suffering or a lifetime of it with the girl he once loved. A choice that would either free him or drag him down. Pavement wanted the struggle. He wanted the fight.

He wanted Sam.

Lines of scarlet hatred and boils that popped as they eroded upon his skin. Yellow liquid that gushed out and hit the snow with hisses. Pain that grew dim the worse it got.

"Why-"

In the past, she would never let him talk and there wasn't a change in the now. Now was an illusion. Time couldn't pass. Time could only watch and see what was there, gently pressing down to slow or rise, but it could never pass. Time never ended. There was never an end and Pavement knew that it didn't matter if something had been days or weeks or any measurement known to man. Time was a being and he was deadly, ready to strike at the kill and maim all who dared attack him. It was the destroyer of all. No matter what happened a moment would stay, not willing to leave, and until it was ready to leave there could be nothing done on the matter.

"Do you want me to be alone?" she asked. "Graves are awfully lonely with only one body in them."

Pavement shook his head and it moved the air in delicate swirls, disorientating all it touched. He could see perfect but the world was moving and it was confused. Pavement was no longer confused. He understood. Everything seemed to hit him with a stick--a great wave of clarity that held no friendship or love. Compassion was a lie.

"You want me to die," he whispered back to her. "You want to kill me."

Laughter shook the air and it spilled from her mouth as his skin rotted. She was a demon. A monster. She was everything. She hadn't changed. The Capitol didn't change people and that was their downfall. They left her exactly as she was and that's how he knew that it was fake.

No one stayed the same.

Not even him. "You want me to die and you think I'll do it just to make you damned happy," he said. Then he laughed, harder than she did. It shook the air in waves and trembled before his presence. Almighty was him and he was it--fully controlling the world and never allowing anything to pull him back into the confusion he was prior. Words were nothing. Words could not define who he was, nor could they help him figure it out. An emotion drove him, one that never ceased, one that would burn him until he burned the arena alive and stepped foot back in District One. There, he would be just another winner. "You're an idiot, Sammy. You always were. You think you're smart because you know things, but the truth is, knowledge got me nowhere in life. It fucked us all up. Knowledge is what breeds the lies of our universe."

"You're being such a boy," she muttered. Then, Sam liked her lips and she placed a hand on his shoulder. It bent and twisted before her, a burning, neurotic sensation that lit him on fire in the worst way possible. He was the sky at night, a barrage of oranges and reds. They were the battlefield and the soldiers, together waging a war against him that could only be one by total submersion into a world of heathenistic pain.

"You're such a bitch. You always were. Loading a damn gun during practice, then being so stupid as to pick the wrong one up. You wanted to kill me. Instead, you died. A shame, really. Gun practice is so much more fun when the right people die," he told her. Then, Pavement shoved her from his chest and kicked up with his leg. The muscle didn't move half as much as it should and only banged her, but in that second he managed to reach down and grab his dagger. It was sharp and cold and fought the pain. The pain was burning and snow hit him in flurries, no, torrents that poured down from the heavens. Wet, thick snow that dripped down and clogged his hair into his eyes and face. He didn't breathe. He didn't think.

One attack and she was dead. Blood, squirting all across him. Then, he sighed.

"It was Pavement, bitch."