thecapitol | Pretty paper, pretty ribbons of blue.

WHO| Wyatt and OTA
WHAT| Christmas Shopping!
WHERE| Various Capitol shops
WHEN| After getting the Secret Santa notes
Warnings| None at the moment. Will edit if anything comes up!

Like all the others, Wyatt had discovered the note in his room directing him to come up with a gift for one of his fellow tributes for Christmas. Never mind that he'd never even met the "Iskierka" listed on the card, or even known there was any kind of gift exchange going on in the first place.

...But he couldn't say that the idea didn't appeal, the more he thought about it. There hadn't been much to celebrate, that first Christmas of his in the Capitol, but this year....

Picking up the strange card he'd been given - trying not to think of the funds they'd given him as blood money - he cornered his escort for information (the man tried at least to look sheepish for signing Wyatt up) and then headed out into the snow.

Even armed with everything his escort could tell him about Iskierka, Wyatt still had little idea where to start shopping for a dragon. While he chewed it over, he hunted down some other gifts, knowing nothing would really be able to tell Max or Howard what they meant to him, but wanting to do something, all the same.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A snowflake caught itself on his eyelashes, and Hawkeye pulled back in a parody of a flinch as he rubbed it out. He took the moment to survey the storefronts presented before them, and to silently remark how much even they had changed. Nothing was too simple for evolution, he thought.

"Yeah, well-" and he dug into pocket after pocket that was on him, starting from what was on his jacket until he produced a slip of paper grasped in his hand, not quite showing the name printed on it. He held it up for a short while and balled it up and stuffed it back where it had come from. His expression was a curious one, nearly genuine. "Did you get assigned someone to find somethin' good for, or are you only out here to treat yourself? Not that we don't deserve it, a little shopping trip, some R and R." And he wondered about novelty shops and sex. It was a brief flashback to Tokyo, or Seoul. A foreign place, life after the bloodbath, a shopping trip.

Wyatt watched him dig, his raised eyebrow inching higher as he began to wave, the small - familiar looking - paper fluttering as his hand swung to and fro.

Bemused, he reached into his own pocket and pulled out his matching scrap, a flash of white against the dark wool of his coat before he tucked it away again.

"Capitol gifted us all by the looks'a things." Shifting, he turned to start down the street, a slow, measured movement, easy for Hawkeye to keep up with if he intended on tagging along. "I got a dragon. What's yer poison?"

It's hardly a beat before Hawkeye finds himself saying, "How nice of them." And he figures it's a habit he'll never break. B.J. had struck a nerve once, insisting he had a problem with trying to always get the last word. As he kept pace with Wyatt, Hawkeye supposed he could see it. Much like he was sure he had seen the dragon- or a dragon- in the jungle of the arena. If dragons of real life looked like they did in story books, that is. If it had been him, he'd have gone off on a rant about it. It's almost awe with which he peers at Wyatt again. Of course, the look dissolves and is replaced by nothing of importance, no strong feeling evident.

"I haven't checked yet," he says and the lie is obvious like he wants. "But whoever it is, they can snap me in half if they don't like what I get them. Usually, I gift chocolate covered lizards." Two years and then some of being understaffed and overworked and he had learned the other officers as if he had been raised with them his entire life. Better, in some instances. Still, the gifts had always come from home. "Or a purebred racing roach from our stables." And he didn't know why he thought the war had been his entire life, just then, and he kicks at the snow under his feet seemingly out of boredom. He perks up and glances at Wyatt when the snow hits the man's legs. Oops. "Do you know," he ventures, "you sounded crazy just now? The 'dragon'? No one's going to believe us when we go home, ya know."

Wyatt had been fishing often to know to what it looked like. Felt like. And Hawkeye was dangling out his bait as if Wyatt were a fat catfish. Why, Wyatt didn't know. It was just idle conversation, no reason he could see for Hawkeye to make a production out of it.

He let the hook be swept away in the current of the man's words.

"Ain't the first time I've been told that." Pausing, he reached down to brush at his pant leg, knocking away the wet that clung to the fabric, shooting Hawkeye a look not unlike one he might have given a child. Half-amused, half-weary. "Loses it's punch after awhile."

He gave himself a shake and started down the street again.

"An' I could think of worse problems to have if I got back."

It wasn't that he loved being on the receiving end of the Look. Wasn't that he loved being treated like a child, though he wouldn't admit to not feeling the relief of being allowed to act like one. But maybe it did something to a grown man to be handled that way by the legendary Wyatt Earp. He has to stifle a genuine apology.

"I wasn't calling you crazy," he clarifies, voice loud and a smidge rushed. "I mean, it's good to know I'm not the only nutjob who doesn't mind hearing it so much anymore, but I'm directing the 'crazy' here at everything. We're playing Secret Santa for dragons and armored tanks. What can be worse than explaining that?" Because explaining an other-worldly death game, being brought back to life, and time travel would gander pity. It would put him in a madhouse, cackling in a padded cell, alone. But say that, above that all, there's this gift-giving holiday and everyone was so cheery happy-happy through it all-- it was crazy. It was. He wasn't wrong here.

"Who says ya gotta explain anythin'?" he asked, conversationally, arching a mild eyebrow at Hawkeye. "They took us from a point in time, why couldn't they send us back to it?"

If they ever went back. Wyatt himself wasn't among those that believed they would. Not if the Capitol had any say in it.

(Maybe after. When justice was brought to the Capitol, maybe they'd be able to puzzle out how they'd been brought here in the first place and how to undo it. Maybe some would be able to go back. Wyatt wasn't sure he would be.

A year. He'd been here longer than that now, and his hopes and dreams had changed much in that time. From pinning his badge back where it belonged, to tilling earth. From the faces he forgot the details of a little more each day, to the ones with him now, fighting at his side.)

He approached a door coming up to the side of them, reaching for the carved wood handle - encouraging, he thought - and giving it a pull. He stepped back with it, motioning Hawkeye through ahead of him.

He had thought long and hard about the possibility of going back- it'd been his subject of choice to muse about in those plush Capitol beds or under the steady stream of water that came with a proper shower. If they brought them in, they could take them out. But he hadn't thought about the time, specifically, and having it pointed out makes him shut up and ponder.

He'd just told himself the Army was good at finding replacements, and that the 4077th could survive damn well without him there, though he hated to admit it. They were a machine, and one part could be swapped for another, and it would take time for it all to work together as seamlessly but it would, because there wasn't another option. But what Wyatt proposed made as much sense as anything else, and he felt like a fool for not having considered it.

He huffs out a "Huh" and slips through the open door only mentioning something about what a gentleman Wyatt was. His eyes go to explore the shop, and he's not a yard indoors before he's got his hands on something on display,the snow of his shoes trailing a mess behind him. "What were you hoping to buy, lighter fluid? A flint stone? Polish for the scales?" Like he was the store manager or something.

Wyatt pushed the door closed behind them, tapping his boots calmly on the mat just inside on the floor while Hawkeye wandered ahead, child-like in his eagerness. Reminding Wyatt of a puppy he'd had once, rushing about to take it all in through his nose, mouthing on everything.

"Ain't sure yet," he said, echoing his early admittance. "I got a few folks on my list an' only one bought for."

The little box shifted in his pocket as he moved off the mat, brushing by Hawkeye to drift down the aisle.

Max was practical enough to appreciate a good striking set, Wyatt figured, chewing over Hawkeye's suggestions... but it wasn't like he'd have any use for it here. And he wouldn't be allowed to take it with him if he was sent back into the arena.

"It's different this year," he muttered softly, almost to himself as he reached out to rub his thumb over tall, thick candle. (Even they had changed over the years, coming in every color he'd ever seen, and smelling of every damned thing from cooked meat to sweet flowers.) "Christmas always been important, but this year...."

It felt even bigger. Like he had to make the most of it.

A year was already rare... How likely was it that he'd last another in the arena?

Pretty paper, pretty ribbons of blue.

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