thecapitol | we wine, we dine, and everything is fine [open!]

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we wine, we dine, and everything is fine [open!]

Who| Everyone still in the Capitol. If the Hunger Games is a significant part of your life, or if you wield any influence at all in the Capitol, you've received an invitation. Unless you're Victory Hannibal.
What| Week 1 viewing party! It's horror-movie/monster themed, so break out your best sexy witch/vampire/mummy costumes! Also, feel free to use it for sponsor schmoozing.
Where| A ballroom, and some adjacent rooms.
When| Just before the Arena begins, and into the night.
Warnings/Notes| Watch this space for warnings. Also, feel free to make closed threads amongst yourselves, but Stephen will likely at some point come up to greet you personally. If you think your Capitol character would be familiar with the Reagan family, make an OOC note, and I'll give you a quick rundown on their sordid past.

There is a fog machine.

The fog hovers around the guests' knees and ankles, doing nothing to impede visibility or movement, but it creates a ~mysterious~ atmosphere. The ballroom is modest, by Capitol standards, able to comfortably hold about a hundred people. There's plenty of space. The room is dimly lit from concealed sources that nonetheless throw the guests' shadows into frightening shapes on the wall. There are tables laden with food along one wall, and plenty of comfortable seating, for projected onto the far wall is a live feed from the Games.

Through the doors are smaller, more intimate rooms, with cushy couches and a smaller screen apiece for watching the Games a little more privately. One pair of double-doors leads out onto a balcony with a beautiful view of the city.

Everyone who received the invitation was informed of the theme, of course: no pressure, but if you want your outfit to match (and he's sure you do), make sure it's a little bit -- spooky.

Stephen himself, tastefully attired in a shimmery black suit, cape, and vampire teeth, is moving about the guests, giving friendly greetings to those he knows, making polite conversation with those he does not, ensuring that everybody (or at least, everybody possible) is having a good time. So what if his smile looks a little fixed, every once in a while? It's a party. What could possibly be wrong?

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Victory was, of course, trying to go for the damsel that one rescues from the vampire, in a Victorian-style dress with a little bitemark applied to her neck. Currently, however, she's a bit too flush to look dead or even dainty. Her cheeks are burning red and she's got a little bit of unsightly sweat at her hairline. She fans herself and sits down at one of the couches.

Maybe it's just the handsome man next to her. She's certainly felt hot and flustered writing about him. She reaches over and rests her hand on his knee.

"Where's Maximus, cowboy?"

Wyatt had, over his long stay in Panem, encountered his fair share of excitable, overly familiar fans. More woman than he could count (and increasing numbers of brave men), were often finding excuses to put their hands on him. So often, he almost expected it anymore.

Didn't mean it liked it any better than he had the first time, he'd just gotten better at reacting to it.

Tensing, he shifted out from under the woman's touch.

"You know how the stylists are," he muttered as he turned to look at her - figuring to himself that her high color and likely a good portion of her forwardness was thanks to the free flowing booze. "He'll be along."

"Oh, I should know. I am one of the Stylists. We just like to do our best work." She gestures for an Avox to bring her more ice for her drink and settles in a bit closer next to Wyatt.

"If I weren't so loyal to my own District, oh, I would be asking for a transfer to District Ten in a heartbeat. Or Three. You're both lucky men."

Wyatt exhaled, a long-suffering breath, and resolved himself to being neatly boxed in - at least for the next few minutes.

Keeping one eye out for possible escape, he did his best to play polite.

"Likely for the best, wouldn't want yer tributes gettin' upset with us for stealin' ya away."

"Eugh." Victory tries to snort, but instead the sound gets stifled in her stuffed sinuses, and she ends up trying to politely sneeze into a napkin. "I'd hope they'd miss me, but I don't think they appreciate me at all, honestly. I have that one little rat of a teenager who insists on looking grungy and unkempt at all hours and running around with that awful man Joel, and the other one who would be excellent for some sort of emaciation chic if he'd let me dress him in something that showed off his ribs. Don't tell them I said that, by the way, Ellie and Howard are both lovely kids, just..."

She waves a hand and politely folds up her dirty napkin and tosses it to an Avox. "It's hard to go unappreciated."

There was a flash in Wyatt's eyes, a quick tightening in his jaw as she went on, but he managed to hold his tongue. Catching the side of it between his teeth.

"They're young," he grit out. "Goin' a bit wild's a part of the process."

When they were allowed to really be children. When people like this woman weren't sniffing and wrinkling their noses, wondering what they could do for her.

"Oh, I know they're young, it's just that, well, born and bred Panemian children tended to be a bit easier to work with. They weren't so rebellious before the Never-Ending Quell." Victory sighs, and it's an oddly genuine sound from her. "I miss those children."

The ones who are dead and staying dead.

The ones too scared to fight back. The ones with no hope of coming back, especially if they didn't play by the rules the Capitol set for them.

Funny getups and all.

"Why'd you get into this?" he asked her, dreading the answer, but unable to hold the words back. "Could'a saved yerself the trouble, surely."

"I figured if someone must die, they may as well have a few days of being treated like a princess before they do. Or like a prince." Victory shrugs, then sniffles into her napkin again.

"It's hard work, you know, so very hard, but I like to think that I ease them into this cruel world."

Wyatt's head tipped, studying her flushed face in something akin to surprise.

That hadn't been what he'd expected. That wasn't nearly as bad.

"An' if they'd rather jus' spend their last few days bein' them - bein' as comfortable as they can? That ain't too much to ask, is it?"

"Oh, they think they're just 'being them', but that's just them being stubborn." She waves her hand, her handkerchief. "They don't know what they want, or what they-"

She coughs mightily into the crook of her arm, hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. "Excuse me. What need to look beautiful, I mean."

"Better to die as yerself, than somebody else," Wyatt replied, a rumbling murmur as he watched her, increasingly concerned.

And not just for his own sanity.

"Ya alright, Miss?"

"I think I'm dying," she says, using it as an excuse to dramatically slump on him. He wouldn't deny a poor sick lady, would he? No, Wyatt Earp (or the Wyatt Earp of her dreams) is a perfect gentleman, and will take her in his arms and up to bed.

"I have never been so ill as I have been lately."

Caught by surprise, he caught her out of instinct - helping, as was his nature without thought - and it wasn't until she was already in his arms that he wondered if maybe there hadn't been a better way.

"If ya aren't feelin' well, ya should be restin'," he replied lowly, shifting carefully as he worked to prop her back up. "Maybe ya aught'a think about headin' on home."

She uses that position as a chance to cop a feel, her hand running up his chest. Oh, it feels as sturdy under her hand as the District Ten Stylist gossiped about.

"You might have to carry me home," she sighs. "I'm only on the first floor. Not too far."

It was a strange predicament to be in. It wasn't in his nature to deny anyone, especially a woman, help when asked, but this place, these people were so far from what he'd ever considered natural....

It wasn't as simple anymore as just seeing a woman home to be polite.

His eyes seemed to glaze, fixing on some middle-distance as he did the math and tried to work through to a solution.

"Not sure if my stylist would appreciate it any if I went wanderin' an' all their hard work went unseen," he said finally, moving Victory back a bit more forcefully. "But I'm sure we can find a peacekeeper to see ya home safe."

It wasn't his job anymore, he reminded himself. They had their keepers.

"Oh, you don't have to stay long! I'm not-" She coughs again. "I'm not inviting you to my room to sleep. I'm not that kind of woman."

She totally is. And as handsome as some of the Peacekeepers are, they don't have Wyatt's star power.

"I don't trust the Peacekeepers, Mr. Earp. You know where my allegiances lie, with my Tributes. That doesn't endear me to them."

"Maybe an Avox then," he offered instead. "They're 'sposed to be seein' to yer needs, after all."

(Saying it made him want to rinse his mouth with soap.)

"They're traitors, you know. You'd leave me alone in the company of the nation's traitors?"

She deploys a calculated lip wibble.

His jaw tensed.

"Accordin' to the Capitol, I'm a traitor, Miss." He shifted her back a little more forcefully and twisted his hips, sliding closer to the edge of the cushion. Meaning to stand just as soon as he was certain she wasn't going to flop in her face. "If ya can trust me, ya can trust them."

"Oh, please, the cuff? Everyone knows you wouldn't betray any of us as long as we have Maximus on a leash." She sits up, pouting with her inflated duck lips.

Wyatt stilled suddenly, as sharply as she had slapped him one.

It wasn't as if he didn't know that, as if he didn't know what the Capitol saw as his weakness and what it meant to them, but it was another to have it flaunted so.

Whatever fence he had have been on where it came to her, that decided it for him.

"Handy, bein' able to dangle a man's family in front of him." His hands dropped away before they could tighten on her. "Makin' sure he ain't got a choice."

Victory's lips purse into a Betty Boop-like expression of surprise. While she knew the threat, she clearly didn't realize the actual weight of it.

"You almost sound like you resent me for stating a fact. That's so...rude."

Wyatt just stared at her, blue eyes gone cold and distant. She'd crossed the line and there was no uncrossing it in his book.

But still he stood and held out an arm to her.

He didn't know how much sway a stylist held, but it wasn't worth the risk. She wanted a goddamned toy, a story to giggle to all her friends, he'd give her one.

"Thank you," she says, then tries to purr and only succeeding in nearly hacking up a lung into her kerchief. Blood splatters past the hanky and onto her knuckles, too.

Her eyes are watering when she stops, and she leans on Wyatt, letting him guide her.

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the_marshal - 2014-06-30 18:37 (UTC) - Expand

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