(no subject)

[polyturtle]

WHO| Don and OPEN
WHAT| Don has awoken, and...well, he doesn't take what happened too well.
WHEN| After the end of Arena 04
WHERE| Throughout the District 9 floor
WARNING/NOTES| Sadness. Lots of sadness. And stuff.

If Kevin Prentiss was the toast of the town, then at this moment, Donatello was probably the butter spread on top of it.

Of course, his incredible streak - and surprising transformation (what a plot twist! So wonderfully brutal!) had only enhanced his standing with watchers in the Capitol. Few Arenas had one person kill so many people. There was even talk about one party-goer who was going to do a "metamorphosis ball" in honor of Donatello's transformation in the Arena.

But if anyone in the Tribute building was expecting to see Donatello out and about after the end of the Arena, they would be sorely mistaken. He was in his room, on his bed, staring out the windows. In the common room, on the couch, looking at the floor. Barely touching his food or drink.

Donatello had flashes of what he might have done. They were faint, almost dream-like, sporadic flashes. He can remember running and tearing into...something fleshy. He didn't know what. Almost as quickly as they came, they were gone. It was enough for him to know that he didn't want to know anymore. Which, of course, he was filled in on anyways, by one of his Stylists (who also maintained a healthy distance from him as he was given the news, and then ran out of the room).

This just...killed him. The Gamemakers had to know. They had to know he was infected. The file they had on him - the brief glance of it he saw - had concise information on him. How could they let him into a place with radioactivity knowing-

Ha. Who am I kidding. Because it makes a good story...good TV. That's all it is...to the people in this city.

He was tired of this game.

He wanted to go home now.

Comments

[needsaprince]

Lottie has seen what had happened. How could she have not?

She wasn't sure how it made her feel. But she wasn't going to avoid her. She had heard whispers of such, and the way they made her heart sink...she couldn't.

So here she was, trying to find her friend on 9's floor.

[polyturtle]

Lottie could find Donatello easily enough. He was in the common room, staring out the window, silent and still as a stone. His face is blank, but weary.

He doesn't notice Lottie coming, or hear her enter.

[needsaprince]

"Donatello?"

She doesn't want to surprise him. It's rude and, maybe, somewhere deeper than she wants to admit, the idea scares her a little bit.

But she pushes that away. This is a friend.

[polyturtle]

It took him a moment to quietly look up at Charlotte. Lottie, who practically died in his arms, covered in sores from radioactive sores.

"Hey..."

What is he supposed to say to her, after what happened? She had to have seen. The Capitol practically made it a requirement that felled Tributes watch what occurred after their deaths in the Arenas.

[needsaprince]

"Hey you, can I sit?"

That look broke her heart. She never thought before turtles could looks so darn sad.

[polyturtle]

"...Yeah, it's fine. I mean, if you're ok with it."

Forget looking sad. Donatello felt like his heart was ripped out of his body.

[needsaprince]

"Of course I'm ok with it darlin'."

She sit's next to him, reaching to take his big hand in her own much smaller ones.

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

Sneaking in here....

[tailforbrains]

Neeshka was creeping around now that the rest of the Tributes were out of the arena, looking for somebody to make fun of, steal from, or maybe ask questions of. Donatello? Kind of high up on that list of people to ask questions of.

So as soon as she knew he was back, she poked her nose out of the elevator on the 9th District's floor. "Oh Doooonateeeellooooo," she sang out, looking left and right. She'd been warned not to hang out too much on rival Districts' floors, but since when did she pay attention to rules like that?


((so, sorry I never got a log up, but we can handwave that and do this instead? :: sheepish grin :: unless you still wanna log it! I'm game!))

[polyturtle]

((OOC: No problem! :D))

Don could pretty much tell when someone was coming. Mainly because when the elevator rotors slowed down, he could tell which floor they were going to stop at. Though, truthfully, the person coming out wasn't the person he was expecting.

"Come in."

He's in the common room, on one of the couches, staring down at the floor. Sorry Neeshka. There's nothing to steal here if she was considering to get a bonus score out of the deal.

[tailforbrains]

Too bad. She's kind of used to that in the Tributes' quarters, anyway.

Neeshka steps out of the elevator proper and pads quietly over to Donatello. Obviously, though, there's no hard feelings, because she leans over his shoulder and grins at him, head all sideways and hair sticking up (well, more than usual). "Hello! Welcome back to the land of the thinking."

[polyturtle]

"Haaa...thanks."

Donatello, meanwhile, was on the complete opposite spectrum of no hard feelings. Albeit, he was being hard on himself, and it showed in the circles under his eyes.

[tailforbrains]

Vaulting herself neatly over the back of the couch, Neeshka bounced down to sit beside him, her tail flopped over the arm of the couch. "How're you feeling? Not so good, from the look of you. Did your radiation-sickness leave you feeling even worse than the rest of us?"

Not that he had gone monster and killed people, oh no. Just that it might have left him feeling sicker since it had affected him more. That was Neeshka's assumption, anyway. She'd been glad to learn just what had been behind the whole sickness thing, once she was out. Otherwise it had just been creepy.

[polyturtle]

Thanks for the reminder, Neeksha.

"No, I'm fine now." Don let out a deep, long sigh. "I'm surprised anyone is visiting me, actually..."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

For a while, Howard spent time in his sweet, taking in all the luxury that he was deprived of for the last fourteen months. Showers, hot showers with soap. As much food as he could ask for. Lights he could keep on when he went to sleep. Toothbrushes with actual toothpaste, although he found out the hard way that trying to brush the holes where his back teeth were is a painful, bloody ordeal. Maybe the people at the Capitol will fix that for him if he asks nicely.

But paradise is only engaging for so long, so soon enough he's exploring the other suites. Some of it's to see if there's anything worth nicking in the other rooms. Some of it's an attempt to see who his competition will be in the next arena. So far, everyone but one guy here has the advantage of knowing their enemies over him.

He was not expecting that one of his competitors was a big turtle. When he say Donatello on the TVs, he assumed it was some monster the Capitol worked up.

Donatello's not really touching the food in front of him, so Howard hovers by the door and stares at it. "You going to finish that?"

[polyturtle]

It was some great food, too. Succulent seafood and vegetables and delicious truffles. And not one bit of it bitten into. At Howard's question, Don slowly looked up, eyes weary.

"...No. You can have it."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Sweet, thanks." Howard walks over and snatches it as if certain Donatello's going to take back the offer, and takes a few steps back. He's not sure what Don's deal is, but the dude did off a bunch of other tributes.

"Bet your appetite's filled for a long time, now."

[polyturtle]

Don didn't even make a move to stop Howard; he was more than welcome to have it. Though that last quip did cause Don's eyes to narrow ever so slightly.

"Ha ha."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Dude, no one's dead for real." Thank goodness. Howard doesn't like to think how he'd feel if the last of Lottie's existence was getting her brains beat out by a rock. "Relax."

[polyturtle]

"Its not that simple." His response was quiet. "I don't enjoy killing, regardless of the outcome or reasons. Especially not for...entertainment."

[buildingreality]

She needed to find Don. After all that she had seen on the screens - Ariadne was impossibly grateful that she hadn't had to face that in reality, where he would have been close enough to touch - she needed to know that he was back to normal, that he was all right. They'd been allies through too much for her to not be at least somewhat concerned.

So that was that, and then she was making her way to his floor of the building, making sure she got in without fail. People knew her, at any rate, letting her in simply because of that; it made it considerably easier to find Don, and for that, she was glad.

[polyturtle]

He was there. Alive, and normal, but definitely looking down as he sat on the common room couch. He didn't even look up to acknowledge Ariadne's entrance - that is, if he had noticed it at all.

[buildingreality]

There wasn't anyone else around to bother them, thankfully; it gave her free reign to wander over quietly, settling beside him on the couch, facing him as she waited him out. It was for her benefit too, allowing her to study him and his reactions to the whole thing. He seemed out of it, and she couldn't blame him. It seemed to her like there was a big difference between willingly taking out all the other Tributes one by one, as they had done, and singlehandedly devouring them when you weren't necessarily in your right mind.

Finally, Ariadne cleared her throat.

[polyturtle]

That brought Don back. Quickly looking left and right, his eyes finally rested on Ariadne. It was quite obvious he hadn't slept well since coming back, if the half-glazed over eyes were any indication.

"Ariadne." His throat felt dry saying it. "When...?"

[buildingreality]

"I just got here. I wanted to see you." It was as blunt a statement as she could possibly manage, and she was all right with that; with him in this dazed sort of state, Ariadne didn't think he would appreciate anyone beating around the bush. Concern was clearly written across her face as she regarded him, frowning a little.

"Are you all right?"

[polyturtle]

"...I've been better."

Pretty obviously. In between the horror and guilt of what he'd done, to the faint flashes of what he was certain were memories of him in that form, to...just...everything. He hadn't been this upset when he'd found that horrible future. And...he'd been pretty upset when he learned he apparently abandoned his brothers in an alternate universe.

Unless it was because he'd been brought to Panem. Which made that universe the true future after all. Which was one of a dozen different things terrifying him in his state of mind at the moment.