thecapitol | Mini-Arena Reaping

Mini-Arena Reaping

Who| All Tributes, mentors, stylists, escorts, and some citizens.
What| The mini-arena reaping.
Where| The grand foyer of the Tribute Center.
When| 7pm Thursday (11/6). Please note: This log is forward dated by one week.
Warnings/Notes| Unhappy tributes.

At approximately 5pm Thursday, all of the Tributes were notified that their presence would be required at a mandatory meeting in the grand foyer of the Tribute Center. It was to be a formal occasion, and all of the stylists were instructed to dress their Tributes in their autumn best. At 8pm, Peacekeepers arrived at each floor to escort the Tributes down to the foyer, which had been decorated in a playful, nostalgic manner. The Tributes were seated at one of twelve large, numbered tables, though they were told they could mingle, dance, or help themselves to as much punch as they'd like. By all appearances, this little fete was nothing more than a typical, if somewhat bizarre Capitol celebration.

[ooc notes: General arena information can be found here. If you would like for your adult character to react violently/riot after the reaping, you must comment to this post.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She's shaking so hard that she spills punch all down the front of her dress and doesn't care. After a moment she stops trying to force her trembling hands into getting the punch in the cup and just chugs from one of the plastic bottles itself. The red beverage soaking her clothes looks like the cartoon approximation of blood, and anyone who's been in the Arena will know from brutal memory that it isn't real.

Kids shouldn't have to be able to tell blood from punch, she thinks. They should still be scared by fog machines and ketchup.

Were she in her old body, she would explode right now. She would destroy this entire building less out of rage than simply because her heart could no longer be contained. But now she's in a frail human form. Now she's weak, useless, and the message burned into her face stands to remind her that acting out would only put Kankri and Ellie at worse risk. Joly, too, now that he's been arrested, and somehow she was still reeling too hard to come to his aid.

She's going to have the last people she's let into her heart taken away from her. She feels crumpled, a paper lantern with a hole punched through it and discarded along the sidewalk. She feels blind. The lights are too bright as she keels towards the table. She's helpless to save any of them, to provide them even the comfort of knowing things will be cared for here.

The only way she can envision to cope is to stop feeling entirely.

She's downed seven cups of the alcoholic punch by the time Albert and Jet find her. She sits with her back against a wall, rubbing her temple with one hand, staring vacantly as she starts on her eighth.

Prom had never exactly been a thing for Albert but he's thankful for the event calling for a bit more of a toned down style. His stylist had actually done alright this time, brokering no argument from the German.

At least, not until the actual reaping. Child's name after name is called and whatever relaxed demeanor Albert had adopted turned to abject horror and if Jet hadn't been about to go off the deep end, he probably would have punched something. As it is, he and Jet had disappeared for a few moments, Albert forcing his husband off to the side to calm him down and keep him from making things worse.

When they finally return to the rest of the tributes, it's with an undercurrent of fury. But at least now it's an undercurrent instead of obviously etched on both of their faces, Jet in fire and Albert in ice. They don't dance, don't party as the Capitol wants them to do, but they do come across Venus and with a deep breath, Albert crouches down beside her.

"Delilah?" He says her name softly, making sure she can hear him before anything else.

Jet is less gentle than Albert, not because he cares less but because he can tell she's already had too much, anymore and he worried for her health if just one more drop passed her lips. Call him paranoid about the stuff, but that cup was quickly removed from her hand; if resistance resulted in some of it spilling on the floor, better there than in her system.

But as soon as the cup is gone, he's just as gentle as his partner, settling down on his knees next to her to wrap an arm around her shoulders. He was still angry and didn't trust his own voice to do what it needed to, besides, he wasn't nearly so good at words as Albert was so it was better to keep to the actions and let the older man do the talking.

"I'm not finished," she mumbles, although she doesn't actually fight Jet at all when he takes the cup away from her. The alcohol hit her about four cups ago, and the whole world seems to be tilting and sliding around in front of her eyes. She closes them, hoping it'll fix the vertigo, and slumps over into Jet's arms.

"They took Kankri and Ellie." She doesn't think she needs to explain further, not to Albert and Jet, and yet the words tumble out anyway. Slushy, blurred-out words with soft, smudged edges. "They took them and there was nothing I could do. If I did anything they might hurt them more and I don't- I can't do anything. They're going to take them away from me."

"I know." They took Terezi too. And Initiate, Felicity, Clementine. Aang, who was so young he could barely stay awake past eleven at the wedding reception. Even Pruna, someone Albert still wasn't sure how to feel about given her murder of him, but didn't deserve this. No one deserves this. But Albert can't help thinking that the event isn't for the children, that it's to hurt the adults, to goad them into lashing out or fighting back or something as an excuse - any excuse - for punishment.

But none of this is what Venus needs to hear right now. Instead of words, Albert ads his own arms to Venus' other side, effectively enveloping her in whatever safety the two men can offer, shielding her from the reaping and the pain it causes. "I know."

Jet held her and hoped the warmth they could offer between them helped some and maybe the hand he brought up to pet her hair too.

"You're not gonna lose them, they'll come back and you can spoil 'em rotten and remind them you're there for them...just like we're here for you."

It was the best they could do, the best they could hope for. He knew it was what he'd do when this damn thing was over, he'd already decided on what would be waiting for them in their rooms once they got back. Support and comfort was the best they could offer when there was still nothing they could fight but each other.

"I might. Every time one of these Arenas happens I lose someone else, I lose someone a little bit more- Guy and Enjolras and Maximus and Marius- I've been here two years, guys."

She lets them wrap her up, lets them cocoon her in the safety of their love. Because that's what it is, really. She nestles her face into Jet's neck, her knee and thigh in Albert's lap.

"You know how many people have been here as long as me in the Games?" She counts off on her fingers. "Punchy, Sandy, The Signless, Pruna, Eponine, Sigma, Shepard. Seven people. That's it."

Silence reigns for a moment, Albert giving Jet a meaningful look. He's in mind of Black Ghost, watching them take Jet, take Francoise for individual testing, leaving Albert to wonder if he'll be left completely alone again. He knows they felt the same when the scientists took him for hours, sometimes days for 'prolonged endurance testing'. The worst part is always being left behind, not knowing if those you care for - through choice or circumstance - will be returned. Or if they are, in what state.

He's suddenly glad it wasn't Venus or Jet they dragged off up there. Glad and guilty.

"All we can do right now is support each other as best we know how. The alcohol makes everything even more unbearable in the long run, you should know that, and diminishes your ability to support them." He brushes her knee with his fingers, scolding because he cares, because it's easier to deal with the things they can control than the emotional fallout of the things they can't. "There is plenty to worry about with them in there without having to worry over you being sick out here."

Despite the scolding, he keeps his voice soft, almost apologetic. He understands and he knows she knows that, how easy it is to want to fall in a bottle and reduce all brain function to a foggy mass. To not have to live with your own thoughts for at least a little while. How tempting it is to try and turn everything off, through that or something more permanent.

He holds her just a little tighter, unknowingly trying to keep her from slipping away.

He doesn't comment on the alcohol, he can't, not without maybe sounding too harsh or saying the wrong thing; him taking the cup from her hand was the nicest thing he could do when it came to that. A glass or two was one thing, four was bordering on something too close to home to respond well to, luckily Albert did it far better than Jet could hope to.

He continued petting her hair, trying to think of something else to say. Two years and watching people steadily vanish from your life through circumstances you couldn't control. He'd been 001 for so long...how many 002's, 003's and, the one time it even got to a 004 had he gone through? How many new experiments had Black Ghost gone through only to lose them because their bodies rejected the cybernetics so thoroughly that they died or the 'training' and tests proved too much for them? Five 002s, three 003s and one other 004 before, finally, two years after he'd been taken off the streets, the 004 on the other side of Venus had been placed in the room next to him. Every single one of those other victims were long forgotten by record and memory, but Jet held onto them because no one else could...he could imagine how Venus felt.

But there was still nothing they could do, nothing but watching and hoping you weren't left alone to overwhelming silence and your own thoughts terrorizing you about how no one would ever look at you like you mattered again if this small, fragile, group of people vanished. There was nothing he could say and nothing he could promise.

"I'm sorry...but you've got us as long as we're here, we've got you just as you've got them and that's the best we can do for each other right now...so it's got to be enough."

She makes a little mewling sound and closes her eyes, feeling Jet's hand over her scalp. Her breath in her nostrils feels hot and dry. Her body feels like chunks of cement tied up together in a sack of skin. She can feel the alcohol and her sorrow in her head like a physical weight, pushing everything in her down, down.

"I don't want to worry you." It doesn't occur to her that having someone to focus on out here might be a blessing in disguise, that it might distract them from doing something to engender the Capitol's retribution, that worrying about something they can help and fix is better than worrying about things they can't change at all.

"It's enough," she whispers to answer Jet. It's enough because he's right, it has to be. Because she knows that they know, too, that they carry these invisible people with them in their shadows, extending like paper dolls into the dark. "Can we go back to the Tribute Center? I want to lay down in a bed."

Close the chapter on today.

"A little late. We care, so we'll worry." With a glance to Jet to communicate what he's about to do, Albert rises from where he's kneeling and scoops Venus up in his arms, cold though they may be under his suit jacket. "But it's alright. It's what family does."

Worry. Make each other worry. Both.

Another look to his husband and Albert starts slowly for the door, intending to take them all back upstairs and to bed. It's not curfew yet, so maybe they can stay with Venus until the last minute, long enough for her to maybe fall asleep.

He holds her close and secure, arms cold but chest and stomach still flesh under his clothes and his heart beating the same as anyone's in a soothing rhythm. "Alright. Let's go."

Jet nodded to Albert's look and loosened his hold a bit so his partner could pick her up. His hand played through her hair one more time before pulling away so they could leave.

His eyes darted again to the stairs where their friends had been and to the peacekeepers that still hung around, practically daring them to do anything about it. That fire of anger licked at his stomach but he shoved it away and forced himself to look ahead of them instead. They were family and when family needed you, nothing else mattered.

Jet kept to Albert's side, helping him get through the crowd and opening doors when needed. Hopefully they could stay with Venus until she slept and it would offer her a little bit of peace.

She probably shouldn't be surprised that Albert can so easily lift her, but it still catches her off guard. She rests her head firmly against his shoulder, feeling his heart beat all the way through her neck and closing her eyes. Her sense of balance is all off. It feel as if she's sliding out of her own body as she's lifted, as if her brain is still on the floor while her physical self is in Albert's arms.

"We find family in the strangest places." She knows it's a simple statement, but in her inebriated state she feels it's outright profound. She reaches out and tries to hold Jet's hand, unaware of how that may make the trek upstairs more awkward.

"I really don't feel well. I wish you two could stay. Does that sound selfish?" She sighs through her nose. "I wish we didn't have curfew so you two could sleep together."

"We do, but it's something to be grateful for, I think." With Venus' hand reaching for Jet's, Albert adjusts his gait to allow her the contact without too much trouble.

"And curfew is a little ways off. We'll stay as long as we can." He doesn't find it selfish at all. Frankly, he'd rather stay the night and watch over her, make sure she doesn't drown in helplessness without them to keep her afloat. The last part of her words he tries to ignore for now, a louder echo of a wish he doesn't dare to have too strongly after Jet was already rejected for a pass. Whatever price the Capitol wants them to pay for something even as simple as sharing a marital bed is too high. Even so, his soft voice is strained when he responds again, weighed down by forced separation. "It's not so selfish to want to be taken care of sometimes. It's Human."

As Venus reached for his hand, Jet took it and squeezed it lightly. He didn't have anything to say about that second wish of Venus', what was there to say about something you wished for yourself every night you lay awake because sleep just wasn't possible in your own bed? Nothing but 'me too' and that felt perfectly pointless.

"Family you find even when you shouldn't be able to is better than any kind you could be given. So, strange or normal places, it's something to hold on to and take care of at any cost. It's not selfish to care for people like that and be cared about in return, it's normal."

That's what he'd learned as he'd slowly realized the other cyborgs were what a real family felt like, not like the bull he'd grown up with. Normal was a feeling, not a fact and whatever group of people gave you that feeling was the one worth holding onto.

"We'll stay as long as we can and you can get some sleep. We can come back in the morning and we'll have breakfast together." Like a family. Something normal in defiance to the night's events. Something simple like that was the perfect medicine for heartache.

"My extended family kicked me out. They said I was too much trouble, that I wasn't even human enough to waste money and a room on." And she's carried those words around her like a shroud all these years, the chum caught in her net, the debris in her orbit. She believed them, and that's why it took her until she was twenty-something to allow people into her heart.

What she denied herself all these years! It's like being able to hear when before only existed deafness, and it's hard to process and easy to cherish everything from the squealing of metal on metal to the sweetest symphonies.

"Two cyborgs and a black hole in a dystopia. Never thought we'd find normal." She rubs her thumb over Jet's knuckle, for a bit, letting his and Albert's words sink and letting them draw a morning she can wake up to, until she stiffens.

"No, I really don't feel well. I think I had too much." She pats Albert's chest. "Put me down."

"Then they weren't your family." As far as Albert's concerned, a family should be defined as the people who care for you unconditionally, who love you and support you even when it's hard. Unfortunately by that definition, he's the only one of the three who grew up with a family. But now they have each other and whatever happens, Albert's going to support Venus - no - Delilah.

Even if that means sometimes a little tough love too.

At her pat to his chest he frowns and sets her down carefully, poised to hold back her hair if she needs it. Maybe they should have found her some water before moving at all, or something greasy to sop up the excess liquor internally. If she's already sick, she's going to have one hell of a hangover.

Her description of her 'family' made a surge of protectiveness rise in him. Words like those were no different than the punches he'd faced and the oh-so-pleasant words his father had had for him. No one deserved that kind of family forced on them, but it meant the family people like them found later was all the more important. She wouldn't have to suffer that kind of pain with them or from anyone again, he'd make sure of it.

The movement of Albert setting her down pulled his thoughts to her physical state over her emotional one. There wasn't much they could do for her if she was going to be sick except move her hair like Albert was. Jet looked around for somewhere that could maybe offer water or something that could help. It was a little too late for food until they could get back to the tower.

"Be right back." It was directed more to Albert than Venus as he took off towards the most promising option nearest to them.

As soon as Albert's got her feet on the ground, she stumbles over to a nearby trash can and upends her stomach totally. Only alcohol and punch and stomach acid; there's no way to eject the horrors of the night, the memories from her adolescence that still cling to her.

"Sorry." She spits and wipes her mouth. All the gagging has pulled tears from her eyes, dripping down her chin. She's shaking hard, chills breaking a sweat across her back. "I'm sorry. I don't drink often and- sorry."

She straightens up and leans against Albert, into his arms again. He's good to her, he and Jet good to her and each other. That's all they've got is creating a little goodness and letting it loose into this cruel, mad cyclone of a world. "Thank you."

He follows her over, lunging quick enough to keep her hair out of the way as she empties what little had been in her stomach. He has to wonder if she's been eating at all, but it's not the time for that argument, at least not right this second.

"It happens." There's a resigned note to it, a hit of wanting to moralize but knowing it would make him a hypocrite. He's already said his piece about that, and what did he do after the horror Arena? Found himself a bottle and crawled in it for a few days until Jet came back from being eaten. It didn't help him then either, just as it's not helped Delilah now, but he understands at least.

He reaches to smooth her hair, letting her lean on him while they wait for Jet to come back and holding her there loosely, lest she need to break away for the trash can again. "No thanks needed. Though I'm starting to reconsider my opinion on your baldness idea."

It's a joke, a stupid one, but hopefully enough to lighten the mood.

Jet comes back in time to see she's shaking and a little ashen, but standing at least. He'd come back just in time. He tossed the water bottle to Albert for him to open it for her and moved to take his jacket off and wrap it around her shoulders. Hopefully that would help.

"Here. Get some water in you, that should help. Feeling a little better, at least?"

There was only one good thing about throwing up and that was that whatever had been bothering your system before wasn't there to keep bothering it.

"Halle Berre haircut for me all the way," she mumbles, taking the water and taking a tentative, small mouthful. "I'm okay. I think that's it. I just- I can barely stand up straight. I'm so sorry."

She can't help but beg forgiveness, apologies coming from her mouth faster than the punch did. It's the alcohol, amplifying every fear like light through an aperture lens. This fear that the same tales her blood family lived out will replay here.

But she knows, deep down, that Jet and Albert aren't the kind to turn fear and grief into her aunt's cruelty or her grandfather's apathy. Abuse doesn't law dormant in their graveyards waiting for witch curses.

"Let's just get me upstairs."

"And some water. And maybe some toast." He'll make the toast. Letting Jet in the kitchen is just asking for a disaster that they don't need right now. Or it might make her laugh, who knows. Jet's kitchen comedy of errors could earn awards.

He holds his arms out, offering the carry her again. She's still shaking like a leaf, but he also understands the factor of pride, of wanting to make her way on her own feet because at least she could do that. He'd rather carry her though, not just to get her upstairs faster, but because he wants to take care of her.

She's their sister, as much as Francoise was - is - and they'll both care for her that way.

Jet hovered near her side, even when Albert offered to carry her, he stayed nearby on the chance she'd need him to balance. Otherwise, he wasn't sure if he should take a more active role in helping or just staying to the side and helping when she needed it.

It was hard to watch her and not feel uneasy. It wasn't born from fear of what she might do-she wasn't his father by any stretch- but more a fear born from the possibility of not being able to help her. He wouldn't lose someone else he cared about to alcohol and while that fear was only a fear now, he'd be damned if he stood by and let it turn into something more.

"Come on, we'll be back to your floor in no time."

She gets about halfway up the stairs before she ends up letting Albert carry her the rest of the way, her balance too far gone to justify trying to maintain her pride.

She crawls under the covers when they get up to District Five, feeling like the blood in her head is sloshing around, like her skull is nothing but another vessel for wine to fill. She makes a little groaning sound and scoots to the side of the bed, exhaling deep and making enough room for the two of them.

"Stay with me?"

Mini-Arena Reaping

For Albert and Jet

Venus -> Albert -> Jet?

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/wrap soon?

Sounds good! Just a few more I think.

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Wrap up?