thecapitol | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who| Everyone, pretty much. Particularly Secret Santa people and those Creuntus is fucking with.
What| Holiday times!
Where| The Tribute Training center
When| The whole week, but Creuntus' gifts arrive today.
Warnings/Notes| none atm. Please add any in thread headers. Also, for secret santa, if you are the giver start a thread with your giftee's name (unless you two have worked something else out between you). You can use the District threads below, or choose a different setting of your own.

Every floor public space is dripping with holiday decorations.

The decorations are themed, ridiculously so. Every surface is covered, and a table sits proudly full of holiday treats and spirits, kept stocked constantly by the avoxes. Cheerful music plays softly throughout the whole building, though luckily for everyone the Capitol doesn't really know what Christmas carols are.

Those with secret santa's have a cheery, passive-aggressive note reminding them not to disappoint anyone and ruin their holiday.

Those that have expressed a want for some object from home will find a box on their bed sometime during the day, with a merry holiday greeting from Cruentus. Inside they will find the object of their desire, or something similar, crafted from their words.

In blown glass. Pretty, decorative, utterly useless.

Bert's guns, Punchy's goggles, Sigma's music box, Maximus' leg, Mindy's knife, Terezi's dragon cane...on and on, as many gifts as Creuntus could find out. Those that were with them when they were pulled are more perfect replicas, those that they have just described obviously have an artistic touch to them.

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Eponine had refused to buy Wyatt anything. Why should she get anything for him? Just because the Capitol told her to - PAH. He wouldn't want what she could offer him, and she certainly wasn't going to waste effort looking for a present for him either.

So her exasperated Escort had fixed her up with a cowhide-print gift bag.

Inside is a plastic dinosaur, purple and yellow in colour, with a ridiculously happy expression on it's face. In fact, if either Wyatt or Eponine had grown up in the English speaking world in the 1990s, they might recognise it as one Barney the Dinosaur. It had a tiny plastic cowboy in one claw and it's head was unscrew-able and inside was deep green bubble bath.

There was also a plastic moustache comb, and several handkerchiefs embroidered with different styles of moustache.

Eponine sat crosslegged and waited for Wyatt, a scowl on her face.

Things had gone well enough with Iskierka, or at least, as well as one could hope considering they'd never before, and Wyatt was considering a job satisfiable done. ...Even if he hadn't followed the Capitol's prescribed gift ideas.

He was in fact, feeling well enough about it that he was whistling again, a soft, cheerful carol as he returned to his suite. A song older than the Capitol, forgotten by time.

A song that stuck in his throat, and petered out, unfinished, as he spotted the sullen Eponine. Sulking by the crackling fire.

"Howard ain't here," he offered, assuming that's who she was after. (Why else would she come to him?)

"Yeah well..." She shrugged. She had picked up a remarkable amount of slang from Howard, and perhaps it sounded a bit jarring coming from her, but she didn't care. She held out the bag.

"It's for you anyway. You are, Monsieur, my secret Santa. I think the Capitol was having another joke on me, because I surely wouldn't have found a present for you if it was for my own self."

The surprise read clear on his face, as well as the moment's uncertainty that followed. His immediate instinct was to tell her that that was quite alright and that she was welcome to keep whatever she'd gotten (judging by the strength of that evil-eye he reckoned whatever it was he wasn't much going to want have it anymore than she wanted to give it), but he was aware that the Capitol had made these decisions. Had chosen them all for each other.

Made it a requirement.

And for whatever else she might have deserved, he thought bringing down their wraith on her was a bit much.

"I..." He took a few steps closer, enough to reach out and take the offered bag, struggling to come up with something to say. "...I understand."

Gingerly he reached inside.

She just nodded and watched him, almost apprehensively, but definitely impatiently as well, waiting to be dismissed. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to wait for him, or a token to say she'd given it, just so they they knew she hadn't simply tossed it in a bin somewhere.

He pulled out the gifts, one by one, setting down the bag the little table at the of the couch. He tried not to react to the colorful, leering creature - if not for the little man clutched in its hand he might not have even known what it was supposed to be - but he couldn't quite stop the way his jaw tightened and his shoulder prickled with the memory of teeth and claws.

The comb he pulled out a beat later soothed him some, that at least was a joke, rather than a blatant picking at his most recent death, and the handkerchiefs he supposed he could actually use. When or how, he couldn't say right at the moment, but a handkerchief was a handkerchief, covered in tiny bits of facial hair or otherwise.

All in all, it could have been worse.

One still in hand, he looked over at Eponine.

"Thank ya, Eponine." Still a little uncertain perhaps, but polite. "I know it was likely the last thing ya wanted to do, but ya did it anyway." And she'd done it far less painfully than she could have. "I, appreciate that."

Eponine blanched when she saw the dinosaur. She didn't really recognise it as one of the creatures from the arena, but the figure in it's hands could only be a miniature Wyatt. The comb made her chuckle a little though.

"What is it?" It was out of her mouth before she could stop herself. But Eponine was visibly surprised that Wyatt had thanked her. If she had been handed the dinosaur and the silly handkerchiefs, she thought perhaps that she would throw them at the bearer. And here was Wyatt thanking her.

"Why are you never rude, Monsieur? I am sure you want to be to me." Her voice dripped with distrust. She could not understand Wyatt at all.

Putting the gifts back into the bag, he paused at the question, head dipping, his eyes closing for a moment as he sighed. Pushing the bag away he turned to her.

"Sometimes, yes. Yer right, I do wanna be. Yer rough an' yer rude an' I've seen ya be downright cruel... but ya say ya care about Howard. An' so do I."

And while he had his doubts as to what Eponine really felt for the boy, he knew Howard cared about her. And despite what he felt about her, his loyalty to him came first.

"Hurtin' you, would hurt him."

And maybe, just maybe. Howard was right. Maybe there was more to her than what he'd seen thus far. Maybe with some time and a guiding hand she could come back.

R had.

She pursed her lips. Rough. Rude. Cruel. Yes - yes, she was all those things, and more. Worse than what he had said. But knowing that didn't ease the hurt of someone else pointing them out.

"I think, perhaps, Sir, he will want you to hurt me soon." She shrugged. She knew full well that she had done a bad thing in giving him a chocolate box full of broken jewellery. But it was done now. What could she do? Perhaps she was too far gone to be saved.

His eyes narrowed, studying her for a beat, the fireplace behind her turning her hair to red and gold. (Yet still, despite it, her face remained distant and cold.)

"...If yer plannin' somethin', Eponine, it's not too late to stop it. To think about what yer really doin'."

"It is already done. And I am not sorry, not one bit. He deserves it, that nasty, stinking rat."

She didn't so much as flinch at Wyatt's glare. Let him glare. Let him think her horrid. Howard would feed him a pack of lies anyway, so what did it matter?

He started to speak, something hard and sharp that would have done neither of them anything good, then he stopped and sighed instead, shaking his head.

"Hurtin' him won't make him love ya the way he did." A tired truth. Flat and direct. "All it's gonna do, is push him further away until ya get he finally gives up. Yer gonna be alone, Eponine. An' it's gonna be yer own fault."

"I'm already alone."

His words stung her and she shivered, and wrapped her arms about her waist. It might be the truth, but it hit like the lash of her pa's belt. But she refused to show this man his tears - this man siding with Howard. Did he know what Howard called her? Would he care? She didn't think so, so there was no point in telling him. So she shrugged and turned to go.

"Ya don't have to be," Wyatt told her back, picking up the bag from the table. "It's yer choice."

He left her with that, heading down the hallway to his room, shaking his head sadly as he walked away.

[OOC: Sorry about the mistakes in the last tag. D: I didn't even see them!]

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