Too long putting on a brave face;

[emptytrousers]

Who | Ellie, Riley, Kili, and Fili!
What | Kili trying to distract Ellie (and Fili) from the mini-arena with ice cream! It's not very effective. Also Conversations. Capital C.
Where | Out at a cafe
When | All throughout the mini-arena!
Warnings/Notes| Mentions of trauma/starvation/etc will probably be pretty par for the course.


There was no disguising the day of the smaller arena, no hiding from the aire of trepidation around the tribute tower, when he found his two districtmates missing, but he does his best to ignore it and the glances his brother keeps giving him. Today there was but one task: to distract Ellie, to keep her from watching any of the arena (and by proxy: Fili). It didn't take long for him to realize that the strange displays he had seen all over the Capitol would somehow show them the events of the arena, as the faces of friends filled them throughout the early hours. With a knock on the girl's door (and the meeting of a new friend), Kili towed them all along as best he could to the cafe most isolated from the hubub on the streets, where he believed there would be this 'ice cream' Joel told him about. It was her favorite and potentially the only way to keep her away from any glimpse of Joel being horribly killed for sport.

"Here it is," he says as he pushes them toward the bright pink glass door, decidedly not looking at his brother. "Go pick something."

All he could hope was that he could keep them here in the parlor for, oh twelve plus hours. That shouldn't be difficult, right?

Comments

[onlyimmune]

Ellie had not been interested in being dragged away from watching the games, but eventually she had felt guilty for trying to argue to do so, so she had finally, reluctantly, agreed to go out. As long as Riley came too, at least.

She wasn't exactly in a festive mood, however, and being shoved towards ice cream felt rather more like a demand than a gift, but she liked Kili well enough to try not to take offense to it. Joel probably just told him to do it.

So. The best she could do was put on a brave face for Riley.

"You should see this shit," She told her quietly, "They must have three hundred fucking flavours."

Okay, so she wasn't exactly great at faking enthusiasm.

[firefall]

"Oh yeah? Fuckin' wild." Riley gives Ellie the world's most casual grin. She's got to force a good face on things, even if she's annoyed at this Kili guy bumbling into shit he doesn't get at all. If he's supposed to be Ellie's friend, can't he see what this means to her? Dragging her off for some ice cream like that fixes everything, when she should be looking out for her own people?

Whatever. She tucks her fingers into the crook of Ellie's elbow, traipsing over to the counter. "Wow. Keeping a freezer running just for all of that shit. Welp, I've got no clue where to start, so why don't we order, like, a huge bowl full of every flavor?"

She grins back at the guys. "We could probably finish it all between the four of us, don'cha think?"

[khiluz]

Fíli would most likely be the first to agree with Riley, if only he knew what was happening at the moment. He is well aware that his brother is keeping things from him, as he's not exactly the best at concealing it after all, but he hasn't pressed the matter, not yet at least. But every time a glance that he sends Kíli's way has him turning his head away, Fíli is closer to either want to force it out of him, or go behind his back and ask someone what is it that he is hiding.

"Perhaps so, but I have one question." He looks straight to Riley's face with a most serious and curious expression on his face. "What is an ice cream?"

[emptytrousers]

Throughout all of it, Kili keeps a bright smile on his face, or as close to one as he can manage with worry stewing around uncomfortably. He has to keep them here as long as he can and starting with ordering a bowl of everything sounds like the perfect way to do so.

With an eager nod, "We dwarves can eat a feast at a moment's notice."

He grins over at his brother for a moment, though it doesn't quite reach his eyes when Fili asks about the ice cream. Sure, it's an innocent enough, and really very necessary, question, but he doubts his brother will stop at the ice cream.

So, Kili jumps in with the answer, perhaps a little too quickly, "It's cold and very sweet. You'd like it, Fee. There's lots of different flavors."

[onlyimmune]

"Best thing is just to try it," Ellie assures the dwarf. "Dude, Riley, don't tempt me, first time I got here I spent two days throwing up after eating too much."

She leaned over the counter.

"But I guess we could just get one of everything..."

for Ellie!

[khiluz]

Kíli is not as good at lying as he sometimes likes to think he is, and even if he were, Fíli would easily recognize each fake expression he would try to hide himself behind. Fíli is well aware that his brother is hiding something from him, and has been doing so ever since he arrived in this place.

Today particularly he seems to go to great lengths to keep the small group busy, all the while gluing his eyes to Fíli wherever he turns or whatever he does. It is not until later in the day, when his brother seems to have relaxed enough to step more than a few meters away from him that he manages to catch one of the girls on her own.

"Ellie," he sits next to her with ease, keeping an expression light on his face despite his serious tone of voice. "I would like to ask you something."

[onlyimmune]

Ellie had been fidgety the whole evening, and she raises her eyebrows when he sat down next to her, but didn't push him away or get up.

"Uh, sure. What's up?"

[khiluz]

It had not passed Fíli's notice, how she too seemed bothered by something. Both girls, in fact. But he did not know them well, so he could not know if it was a passing thing, or if it was just finding themselves stuck in such a place that made them act this way.

But if he had to guess, he would say it must have something to do with whatever Kíli was trying so hard to keep secret.

"My brother is hiding something from me. I do not know if he thinks I have not yet noticed," he kept a very small smile on his face, just in case Kíli saw them and, thinking the conversation to be a serious one, tried to interrupt them. "This place... He is not telling me something about it, about these games. Will you tell me about them?"

[onlyimmune]

"Yeah, sure. Whatever you want to know," Ellie said, unable to keep the slightly sour note out of her voice. It wasn't Fili's fault, but she didn't exactly relish talking about the arenas.

"Though there's not much to tell. They throw us in some fucking god awful place and watch us kill each other."

[khiluz]

"What?" Fíli forgot about keeping up a neutral face for the moment, as he frowned and turned to look at her properly. "We are expected to kill each other?!"

It was mad to hear her say it, yet there it was. The one thing Kíli had been trying so hard to keep from him.

[onlyimmune]

"They didn't tell you?" She asked, frowning as she looked at him. Or worse, even Kili didn't tell him?

"That's the whole fucked up point of coming here. To watch us fight and fucking kill our friends. That's the whole fucked up point."

[khiluz]

"At first, perhaps... I cannot recall," he confessed honestly, trying to keep calm through the panic that surely settled. "I was distracted. I never heard much of what they spoke in the end."

And then... then he found Kíli, and now it all made perfect sense. Why his brother kept that secretive behavior of his, even if it was blatantly obvious to Fíli.

"But we may not be taken into these fights, then? Kíli told me he has been here for three months, and has not been killed." Though that might mean he had killed instead, but that was a thought Fíli tried not to focus much on for now.

[onlyimmune]

"Everyone goes, unless they won." She looked at Fili carefully, not sure why he would lie to his brother... and then decided, fuck it. Kili didn't ask her to lie for him, and even if he had, she would have argued against it. Fili needed to know exactly what he was getting into.

"Look, I don't know why he would say that, but he did. Die. Same as I did, and everyone else in that arena, other than Mindy."

[khiluz]

Just hearing her say it was enough for his heart to clench in his chest, and nearly lurch its way up his throat. Yet at the same time he knew that could not be.

"That is not possible," he said with equal parts fear and confusion, as he glanced from Ellie and at Kíli, making sure he was real and still not looking suspiciously their way. Somewhere deep within, Fíli somehow knew he did not want to hear the answer to his next words - but he spoke them regardless. "You are both here. You clearly are not dead."

[onlyimmune]

"Yeah, well duh, we're not dead now," She said, hand over her chest. "But I haven't just died once, Fili. The last arena was my second time in one of those fucked up places. First time I got stabbed to death by a fucking alien, second time Aunamee shoved a fucking metal bar through my gut. Trust me. I've fucking died. However they set it up, they let us die and then just... bring us back, good as new."

[khiluz]

Fíli heard her speak as if he could not believe it entirely. It seemed too mad, impossible, and yet it explained so much. It explained everything, insane as it was - why Kíli was so secretive, why he spoke of some wound to his chest when Fíli was talking about the arrow he had taken to his right leg. Besides, being brought here had already showed him that there was a good deal of things he though impossible that clearly were not.

"And we are just sent back in to do it all again," he sounded incredulous, horrified. "Is this why Kíli does not want me to see those moving pictures?"

[onlyimmune]

She nodded, slowly. "... Yeah. Probably. I mean - don't be mad at him, if he doesn't want to show you. It fucking sucks to see it, and to have these people push your own death in your face, again and again..." She shuddered, and looked away.

"I mean, I get why he wouldn't want you to know, but he's wrong. You need to know."

[khiluz]

"I'm not mad at him." If anything, he was worried, more for Kíli than for himself. Still, the next words he said came in one loud exhale, with an annoyed edge to it only to mask the panic that was sure to settle within him.

"This is so very like him, you would not believe. To think that sparing me bad news will somehow keep me safe. I swear, that idiot acts like a halfwit sometimes."

He put a hand over his mouth for a moment, to calm his breath down. "Are we-- Do they give us weapons, at least? Food? How long do these games last?"

[onlyimmune]

"They last until everyone is dead," She says, deciding not to comment on his brother. Fili was allowed to call him an idiot, but Ellie knew that didn't mean that she was.

"Usually a few weeks. They have this huge fucking pile of shit at the beginning, food, weapons, what have you. Then everyone fucking kills each other to get to it. Sometimes sponsors will send you shit if they like you."