thecapitol | I Want Your Flowers Like Babies Want God's Love [Closed]

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I Want Your Flowers Like Babies Want God's Love [Closed]

WHO| Enjolras and Venus
WHAT| The ship finally sails.
WHEN| End of week 6, a few days after Venus dies.
WHERE| District Five Suite
WARNINGS| Shippy shit. You've been warned.

As with all Tributes upon their return, Venus isn't conscious when she's returned to her Capitol bed, isn't conscious when she's revived from death. She's brought back into her roof, dressed in soft pajamas, having already been prepped slightly by Stylists in the interim. Her hair's in soft, big curls, her fingernails done. There isn't a scratch on her, and she's entirely unrecognizable from the bloody mass of entrails and bone smeared across the floor in the Arena, in footage that's still being played at least once an hour.

She sleeps for a while. She dreams, and that's the first she knows she isn't dead. In her dreams someone is playing Operation on her body, and they're replacing each of her internal organs one by one, but it doesn't hurt, and she isn't scared. You're going to be a whole new person, they say.

And for the first time in a long time, she isn't sad that she wakes up this morning. She's sad when she wakes up, because she knows Kankri and Courfeyrac are still back there in the Arena, now thoroughly traumatized by her badly thought-out decision to spend the moment of her death with them (in retrospect, she should have gone out with dignity in the fall to her demise). But she isn't sad to be alive.

It's a strange feeling. She gets up and wrinkles her toes over the carpet in her room, looking at the rosy pink paint on them, and runs a hand over the bridge of her nose where Kevin cut her up. She takes a moment to cry, but she isn't sure why, and she can't put words to the strange sadness that settles into the folds of her brain, or to how fast she forgets it's there.

And then she feels her pendant from District Five around her neck, and opens the door to her room and into the District Five hallway.

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It's with a heavy heart that he lets himself ponder things. He can sense the lie, the fiction she's trying to develop for his benefit. Fortunately, he's too tired to call her on it, too tired to press more deeply. They're easy now, comfortably slumped against each other and the plush upholstery of the sofa. The lights in the common room are low, more or less limited to the lamp by which he'd been reading. It's blessedly, atypically quiet, and he'd like to appreciate the lack of bustle as long as physically possible. Soon enough Azula, or someone equally troubling, would wander in to ruin it and they'd be forced to collect themselves properly. They might even have to relearn how to settle together into an abeyant. The prospect is both appealing and deeply inconvenient.

He doesn't notice at first, perhaps for several minutes, when she falls asleep. The gentle rise and fall of her chest against him had, at first, been enough for Enjolras to monitor. He, too, rested his eyes, letting his mind wander to thoughts of Courfeyrac, and what strategy might be best to preserve his friend's chances as long as possible. Venus would be a help in this, of course, but it seemed cruel to wake her now, and by the time he'd formed a truly coherent question anyway, he no longer had the will to move or even idly ask it. It was somewhere in the fog of his thoughts and their perfect synchronization that he lost their separation.

"Courfeyrac will be merciless," he agrees quietly, to an earlier point of hers. He still can't be bothered to open his eyes, much less move, but even in his sleepy state he can recognize the truth of that statement. In a few days' time, Enjolras would be wanting to talk strategy Courfeyrac would be mocking him with anecdotes. That prospect is also appealing, and yet deeply inconvenient.

And Courfeyrac won't be the only one...

At first she silently glares at the scene before her. Though she realizes it's hypocritical of her to be angry at him for favoring a tribute, she can find any number of other reasons to be angry for this.

Should she take one of her pills? No...no she wants to be angry. She wants this to burn.

Stalking closer she watches them a moment longer before clearing her throat irritated and when it seems they might not be awake enough for that she casually shoves a glass water pitcher from a nearby table so it shatters with beautifully loud and sharp sounds. An Avox will be by to clean that up surely.

In many ways, Venus is still in the Arena, and as such, when she hears glass shattering she leaps awake and to her feet. It's a good thing, too - were she given the choice between getting up or staying where she is, warm and comfortable and feeling Enjolras' slow breath washing over the side of her cheek, she doubts any threat in the world could have compelled her to rise. Better than her subconscious instincts take that roll fo her.

Her hand slips over her waist, looking for a knife in a pocket that isn't there, and her body stands as a shield between Enjolras (still on the couch) and Azula (looming over them like a vulture). It takes only a second for her to wake up and assess the situation, and she relaxes her shoulders slightly, lets the hand fall forward as if it was never going to curl into a fist.

"Here to welcome me home, Azula?" She sits back down next to Enjolras, trying not to let being irritated to be woken show on her face.

Golden eyelashes fluttered at the sudden, sharp sound, but he can't bring himself to really stir. It isn't until he feels Venus get up that Enjolras decides there might be something more urgent to the noise, and slowly (too slowly), he opens his eyes to take stock of what's happening around them. Venus' stance is protective which is at once charming and insulting. He can take Azula. Not particularly well, perhaps, but he's hardly afraid of her.

"Good afternoon, Azula. I hope your day has been a pleasant one." The greeting is polite, but there's a terseness, a reservation apparent even through the sleepiness in his voice. More awake now, he moves to join Venus, reaching for the hand that was definitely more a fist than not only a moment ago. "Would you like help cleaning that up?"

It's less a question than a critique, and one with which she is by now doubtlessly familiar. Enjolras would never approve of the way she made undue work for the Avoxes. She can dislike him, or be angry all she likes. She doesn't need to take it out on the already unfortunate.

"I'm glad you made it back." She answered with a tightly strung tension in her voice "you've settled in rather quickly. I wasn't aware that Enjolras had room in his heart for any tributes at all given how little he's done to aid them. You really must share your secret dear." She was just going to act like he wasn't there for a moment lest she lash out in a way that was unbefitting of someone in her position.

The option was still open though.

Already a nameless Avox was scurrying out of who knew where to clean up the class, water and slices of cucumber.

Venus doubts this is the last time she's had snide remarks made at her for being in the company of a man, and it's certainly not the first. So, who'd you have to blow to get this gig? Her friendliness, which was already taut, doesn't last long in the face of Azula's hostility. Still, looking irate doesn't have to mean showing vulnerability, so Venus doesn't.

"So, I take it that not all the fighting was in the Arena while I was gone?" She doesn't get up to help the Avox, not because she likes to leave messes for them (those that she does she usually intends to clean up later, and just forgets that they'll vanish before she gets a chance to), but because she doesn't want to make it seem as if she's obeying a whim of Azula's. In terms of positions, Venus is the weakest off, and she doesn't want to undermine herself further.

She doesn't grandstand for Enjolras, though. While she'll shield him with her body, she trusts him to parry with words. Venus knows of the gifts that came to her and Kankri in Enjolras' name, as well as those to the barricade boys. She doubts the latter will go down well with Azula, if she isn't already aware of them.

"There have been disagreements, but I would hardly deign to call them fights. Azula is my colleague; it would be unprofessional and present a poor image of our District." Which was about the most diplomatic way he could put it. They aren't friends, and they don't work together, not really. Frankly, he avoids the woman whenever possible, even now. Her fixation on things that do not matter and never will is grating to him. The best either of them can do once their Tributes have entered the Arena is to soften the blow, victory is in their own hands. Maybe it's actually the demands of passivity that get to him, and not her priorities.

The Avox moves with fluid, practiced motions. It's probably done this a dozen times before when she's lost her temper over something stupid, but Enjolras hates feeling like the underlying cause of it. Being cruel to an Avox is like a prolonged exercise in kicking someone when they're down, and she should recognize that. She shouldn't be taking her misery out on those who cannot fight back. He can feel the anger over her attitude rising up, dusting his cheeks with a blush that a moment ago would have been from boyish embarrassment. He frowns and the expression draws hard, unpleasant lines around his mouth. "Did the pitcher do something to offend you, or have you had too many of your pills today? Perhaps we should send for a doctor. One should be called to check on Venus anyway. I'm sure it would be no trouble at all."

Oh great, he had noticed her medication. Well it wasn't like she was keeping it a great secret lately.

"The pitcher is hardly the point. It was attractive but ultimately expendable. Like any one of us." Even as she hated to admit it.

"And he's correct, the day he irritates me enough to actually lash out at him, I intend to make sure he never forgets it."

So many threats, she wished she could prove them not to be idle.

Back to the clearly more important issue at hand "What's wrong with Venus?" She turned her gaze on the woman in question. "Why do you need a doctor...aside from this." She gestured to the two of them to make her point.

"So this wasn't lashing out at him, it was lashing out at the furnishings?" Finally, Venus loses the tense pose, sitting forward with her chin on her hands, her elbows on her knees, her toes pointed in some subconscious pose with high heels.

And medication. Venus had her suspicions about Azula, having seen so many of the same side effects in her own body and behavior before, but confirmation is welcome, even if she doesn't entirely approve of Enjolras turning it into a jibe. He wouldn't know, naturally, and Azula's hardly doing anything to endear herself to either of them, so Venus doesn't speak up about that, either.

"I don't need a doctor, he's just worried because I busted open like a watermelon on live TV. Honestly, Azula, you didn't even bother to tell me how good I look with all my blood and guts on the inside."

"She's happy enough to see you, Venus, but I think she suspects that you are suffering from some sort of after effect. Perhaps you are still concussed, it would provide an easy explanation for why you would choose to spend your time with me." It's easy to see they way Azula looks at them, both together and individually. It's as if she's assessing, noting nothing but the ways in which they don't match up and none of the ways that they do. To her, they're two pieces for two very different jigsaw puzzles. Moreover, Venus' makes the prettier picture. Why she would bother trying to fit in with him isn't just confusing, it seems upsetting to the other woman.

"Or have I put words in your mouth? I would hate for there to be a miscommunication between us. It might make working together very difficult."

Peace (or lack of it, really) said, he rejoins Venus where she's sitting. His own posture isn't so relaxed, but Enjolras also doesn't feel the need to defend himself against her, necessarily. After all, they know what they are to each other and they know that they have no choice in their association. Perhaps absently or perhaps to make a point, he reaches for Venus' hand.

"Oh yes, because up till now our working together has been smooth and effortless." She rolled her eyes in irritation and let their united front wash over her like a mist.

"You're the one who said she needed a doctor. I've barely had a moment to speak with her and determine for myself if she's fine. And if she says so she's given me no reason to doubt her."

Turning back to Venus "As for you, of course it's good to see you in one piece. I already said I was glad to see you back. We've only just begun our relationship as mentor and tribute. I'd hate for it to end before you've become a victor."

That after all, was her goal in the end. All of them to become victors.

When Enjolras' hand finds hers, Venus gives his an almost defiant squeeze.

"See, I love that sort of confidence she has in me." If only Azula knew that Venus entered every Arena with the end goal of a glorious death. Venus suspects that Azula would be deeply disappointed to learn that one of her shining stars yearns less for the crown than to be the stepping stone upon which worthier opponents (not necessarily combatants) make their way to the crown. Then again, she hasn't shared that particular goal with Enjolras, either.

"But I don't really take well to threats about who I associate with or how, if I'm reading this situation correctly." She stands up, still keeping Enjolras' hand in hers. "But whatever. We could all use some coffee, right? I'll make some and you guys can fill me in on all the discussions you've had while I been gone."

It's the mockery in her voice that keeps him from protesting. He has confidence in Venus too, his just manifests itself in less bloodthirsty ways. Enjolras' confidence has to do with her ability to be something more than a stylish killer. It's a faith in her character an capacity to attend to something greater than herself. It has nothing and everything to do with the Arenas but never in the way Azula conceives of them.

"We work best for mutual ends when we avoid each other." She can agree to that least. Neither of them want to see harm come to anyone in their District (though he wouldn't disapprove of Shepard getting her comeuppance), but they're entirely toxic when together. This altercation is evidence of that enough.

"Coffee," he agrees, making to join Venus in the kitchen. He can prepare the mugs for her and avoid Azula's encroaching stare. "It is too late in the day for your song, I am afraid."

"That is when you do any work at all." Azula muttered in no way trying to hide her bitterness.

"I remain curious, what changed your mind Enjolras? When did you suddenly decide it wouldn't be flying in the face of everything you stand for to participate as a mentor? Because as of our last rather public discussion on the matter you seemed damned and determined to ignore everything about the arena other then how unjust it was."

And all of her nagging, idle threats and even attempts at being polite had gone completely unresponsive as he had continued in his bull headed way to speak out against the Capitol and everything she believed in.

He could avoid her stare all he wanted but he could not stop her from glaring at him while he tried.

The pieces are starting to fall into place, the reasons for this tension Venus has found herself stumbling through as if it's some sort of fog. She walks with Enjolras to the kitchen and Azula trailing behind like an angry ghost before starting up the coffee.

She hops up to sit on the counter putting her line of vision a bit higher than either of them. "Azula, are you more angry that he took so long to change his mind or that he didn't change his mind because of you?"

The coffeemaker snarls in the background.

"She is angry that my mind still has not truly changed. That I can act for my own ends while still finding her system of government vile and doing everything in my power against it." He frowns, but not without a certain smugness, setting the mugs down harshly as if that will somehow negate Azula's insinuations, or make her leave faster.

With nothing else to distract him, Enjolras crosses the kitchen, searching for the apples he keeps tucked away in a bowl on the far end of the counter top. There are three left, but he only grabs two, one person obviously left out of the equation. The coffeemaker whistles awkwardly between them. He can't tell if it alleviates the tension in the air or only adds to it. "The Games are only a distraction and while her heart is in the right place, I suspect, they keep her from seeing the true problems eating away at her people. I pity her."

On that critical note, he takes a bite of his apple while offering the other to Venus.

Her gaze narrowed and in a few long legged strides she closed the space between them and slammed a fist of surprising force into the stomach of the smug, self righteous frenchmen.

"How DARE you? I have bled for this country! I have died a slow lonely death locked away from the world for the safety of my district. I carry the weight of every man woman and child on my shoulders as well as the tributes brought here from other worlds AND you. You lazy, pompous buffoon!"

She turned on Venus with her glare blazing.

"Do what you will with your life and choices Venus. You are a grown woman who has proven herself capable and confident. Intelligent enough to make your own mistakes and learn from them."

But then back to Enjolras.

"But you! You continue to speak out risking not only your life, but the lives of every person you come into contact with. Do you think they are above coming after anyone you show a hint of affection towards? Are you willing to see her tortured till she begs for death all so you can continue to speak your opinions as loud and frequently as possible?"

If he was only risking his own neck she would care so much less. But his foolish actions put them all in danger.

Were she not fresh from the Arena, she might not spring into action. But fighting for her life feels mere hours ago, and Venus springs off the counter and slams into Azula. There's a quick exchange of blows, Azula defending herself and Venus moving to immobilize her, and within a few seconds Azula's pinned against the door of the fridge and Venus' lip is bleeding. Azula finishes her speech, breathless, and Venus says her part.

"Don't touch either of us," she hisses. "And don't you dare use your supposed concern for me as an excuse to lay a finger on him or anyone else."

She's decided by now that while she would have happily tolerated Azula before, she now has no patience for this kind of power-tripping. She's had agents and managers who used their wealth to control and harm others, and she turned a blind eye to it, feeling as if whatever she said would be lip service at best, career suicide at worst.

But either she's not in that position or she's not that person anymore.

She lets Azula go and takes a step back. The apple is still in her fist. "Including the Avoxes."

The speed of the skirmish keeps him from engaging. Enjolras is a fighter by necessity, not by training. At his best, he's a tactician, an organizer, not someone to actively engage in the fray until it becomes a matter of practicality. In Paris, this had been generally worked out well for them, in spite of embarrassingly final evidence to the contrary. In Panem, however, it regularly left him feeling inadequate. After all, he has no business interceding in such a fight. He's outmatched on either side.

Still, he can't keep himself from rushing to Venus' side when she finally stops. As she spits her words at Azula, he catches sight of the blood on her lip. They're both roughed up, but because of the injury Venus seems somehow worse off even though she's clearly won.

"Come on, let us get you cleaned up. You hardly woke up again to have to fight so quickly." Placing a hand on her shoulder, he tentatively pulls Venus away from the kitchen. Somehow the coffeemaker is still going and it hisses at them awkwardly over the tense silence as they retreat.

When they're far enough away to ensure that the fight won't begin again, he calls over his shoulder. "And Azula, were you interested in my arguments, they are two fold. Firstly, I would remind you that if you believe Venus capable of making her own decisions, you should trust her to recognize the dangers of associating with me. Secondly, I have always asserted that so long as we live under your government, we are dead already."

With that, he disappears into the bathroom to search for the first aid kit. So much for a peaceful reunion, indeed.

For a moment...just one glittering moment Azula's fury fell, and she found herself questioning why it was so impossible for her tributes to understand what she was doing for them.

But he just had to have the last word didn't he? He just couldn't take his victory and the tribute he had doomed to suffer in his name. No he had to remind her of that stupid but of logic that gave him the right to sacrifice whoever he pleased for his ideals.

Her voice was the low rumble of a volcano surely about to burst again.

"I shall mourn for one of you when your time comes, and wish that you feel as smug and self righteous in those final moments as you do right now."

Once again, she had lost to his stubbornness, and this time he had claimed a prize.

How many more of her tributes would follow him?

Azula's threat misses the mark for Venus only because it presumes something vital and inaccurate - the idea that Venus fears death. Pain, perhaps, but everyone fears pain. Death, though - she may not be racing towards it quite as quickly, but she still sees it as something of an end destination.

She follows Enjolras into the bathroom (lavishly large, naturally, as part of the District Suite) and closes the door behind her, not for privacy so much as just to put a punctuation mark on the end of their encounter with Azula. She sets the apple down on the tub.

It wasn't as if Azula weren't provoked a bit, but still.

"Sorry. I didn't see how hard she hit you." Venus leans into the bathroom mirror, examining the cut in the corner of her mouth, the bite-marks she put in her own tongue when Azula hit her in the jaw. The fact that they are now a 'thing' doesn't, unfortunately, give her license to lift his shirt and see if there's redness gathering anywhere on his abdomen, but he seems to be walking painlessly enough, and so she sets her worries aside. "I don't like people using my name as an excuse to attack each other."

She sighs, brushing over a scratch Azula's fingernails left on her neck.

"And I do not care for her hypocrisy." He lifts his own shirt, laying it to drape over the side of the tub. When it happened, the attack had winded him, and from the look of it, it would leave a bruise. But he's been through worse and so has she. It seems pointless to fret over something like that now.

Instead, he fishes around a cabinet for the first aid kit and anything else that might help him attend to Venus' injuries. While he doesn't find the first aid kit, he settles for the bottle of rubbing alcohol. While Enjolras isn't exactly well versed in germ theory, he's been around the Capitol and its medicine long enough to get the vague idea. And it does make sense, in its way. And so finally, when he turns back to her, it's a tissue from the sink doused in alcohol.

Maybe it is too presumptuous given the newness of whatever it is that they are. Still rather than simply offering the tissue to her, he bridges the distance between them to hold her in place and dab at the cuts himself. "I am very sorry if this stings."

It's an apology for the sensation but not for the forwardness. They're probably past that. He hopes they're past that.

"She has a point, in her way, but I trust you to make your own decisions."

"I think I can take it."

Venus opens her mouth and lets him dab away, eyes closed, though her lashes flutter a bit as she winces. Physical pain, while something she can and does work through, is still a fairly new sensation to her, and weeks of it in the Arena didn't fully prepare her for the sting at the hands of her friend.

Boyfriend. Best friend. Lover. Whatever they are now. It's with some surprise that she realizes that though they've sorted out what they are emotionally, she still doesn't know how it slots into the English language, and wonders if such feelings translate any more clearly in French.

When he's set away the alcohol and tissue, she leans forward and kisses him on the cheek. She leaves a bit of alcohol, but the cut has stopped bleeding by now. And when opens her eyes, he's shirtless, but not in a way that's sexual or awkward or threatening. Were he from her century she might reach and touch his naked shoulder, but the lines of propriety are too different for her to take risks like that, so all she does is politely focus her eyes on the red blotch where Azula hit him.

"That's going to bruise, but there really isn't much you can do about it." She gets a handtowel and runs it under warm water in the sink, then uses it to wipe the scratches on her neck, jagged but not bloody. They turn bright pink under water.

The reservation is appreciated if only for the fact that he would have no idea what to do if she did initiate more complicated contact. As it is, the kiss carries enough heavy emotion despite its chasteness that it leaves him too deep in thought to really process her statement at first. It makes sense, of course, and the words catch up to him a few seconds later. He frowns in response, but it's a pensive, thoughtful frown, rather than the angry one he'd been sporting earlier with Azula.

"No, I suppose not. Hopefully she shall go and drink herself to sleep. She usually does that at around this time." Which isn't to say that he's been monitoring her schedule in an effort to avoid her, or anything. Rather, Enjolras keeps a sketchy mental schedule of everyone living in the District Suite. Azula's is simply more detailed, that's all.

Half-reluctantly, he pulls away from her to retrieve his shirt. As Venus attends to the scratches on her neck, he redresses in silence. His stomach is beginning to ache, but not from indigestion or anything like that. It's the dull, stretching pain of a bruise spreading across muscle. "Are you feeling alright? This really was not how I intended to welcome you back."

"She probably shouldn't do that with whatever meds she's on." Venus' expression darkens for a moment, and even though she knows, even though she understands that the Gamemakers withheld her own medicine from her to give her a tantalizing story arc, even though she knows that she probably benefited from every shot of her shivering and pacing until her feet blistered and crying at the bottom of the stairwell, it's too hard to feel any gratitude for that now.

But the expression passes, as does the mood, because she's made herself over years into the type of person who can turn to water and let things pass through her, drift across her.

"I'm fine. I've got into fights with scarier people than Azula. I should probably get a move on and make sure the people with a little less resilience than me are doing okay. Ellie and the like." She shrugs. He was on that list, but maybe she's been underestimating his ability to knuckle down and persevere. She left for the Arena afraid of what wreckage she'd return to, if the red flags she saw for self-destruction would culminate while she was away. "You'll probably want to put ice on that. Should I get you...?"

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