thecapitol | [Closed] Get in, loser, we're going shopping

Venus has been doing quite a bit of retail therapy since returning from the last Arena. After a few days of a lot of sleeping, a lot of crying and a lot of avoiding people, she's dragged herself from her cave and out into the sun by incurring obscene amounts of credit card debt. At least now she'll have an excuse that isn't her being irresponsible.

She shows up to the commons in one of her new outfits, a floral sundress and some oversized sunglasses that, while they don't hide her brand, make it seem a little easier to overlook on her face. She's the approximation of a happy twenty-something, even if she doesn't quite feel it.

It's easier to feel it when she's with other people who're happy. Planning a wedding is anathema to the lethargy of self-loathing.

"Don't you look like a romance novel cover?" She grins and struts on over to jet in her heels. "Ready to go get yourself a week of nice clothes?"

Jet grinned when he saw her and pushed off the wall to meet her, a hand skating through his hair in response to the comment. He was pretty sure that was what his stylist was aiming for.

"That exists, you know. Albert found a bad romance novel featuring us in the bookstore in the last arena. The cover was awful--well, the whole thing was awful, but the cover especially. Wish I could've kept it." With Albert looking like some waif of a thing and Jet having that long hair, longer than he'd ever had it before, it was hysterical and the kind of thing that would make him smile even when things were kind've crap.

He offered her his arm half jokingly as they turned for the tower's front doors. "By the way, you look good, Vee, I like the dress." He found he appreciated sundresses over other styles of dresses on girls and he suspected it had something to do with Frannie wearing them more often than not when they were younger.

"So, where're we headed first? Got a plan for this little mission or are we just winging it?"

"Did they make you look like Fabio? Please tell me they made you look like Fabio." She does a little pose when he compliments her dress. It means more than he can say, now that her face is so scarred.

"We're winging it and trusting on my discerning eye to heat-seek us to all the hottest trends." She takes his arm, all but dragging him towards the main fashion drag. It's a little bit of a walk, but she doesn't mind, and her feet have long since become impervious to punishment in tall shoes. "And then we're going to go get your hair did."

And she reaches up and rustles his hair in a surprisingly close gesture of intimacy - but as he offered his arm first, she assumes it's alright.

"Unfortunately, they did."

He goes along with her, laughing a bit at her shopping exuberance. It was contagious. He'd never really had a problem with going shopping before, he and Francoise would spend hours looking and buying or just trying stuff on, leaving Albert and Joe to run and hide somewhere for as long as they could avoid it.

Usually, it ended with them finding their wayward boyfriends and Jet throwing Joe to the wolves so he and Albert could escape and either go home or go out and spend time together. Though Albert was often made to carry most of whatever bags Jet had, his payment for having run off in the first place.

But that had been a long time ago and now he found he'd really missed this part of having friends-not just shopping, but being able to go out and enjoy things with someone without feeling like he was forcing his companion to go.

The gesture was more than all right and he smiled at it despite his attempts to look affronted as he ran his hand through the golden strands again. "Something wrong with my hair?" He thought it was fine just the way it was, slightly styled to keep the long bangs as much out of his face as he could, but otherwise left alone. But, she was running this show, so he didn't really protest.

Instead, his hand found hers on his arm as a show of affection. She'd reached out to him, so he was reaching back.

"When I get home tonight, I'm googling romance novel covers of you. I'm going to insist you use them as the wedding invitations."

Shopping, once a source of anxiety when she was a broke child, has become an easy pleasure for her. It's a quick fix, and probably the healthiest one she has.

"Your hair's great for a day out. It's not so great for a wedding. A wedding's your one chance to try and really marry - pardon the pun - elegance and your own personality, and you don't really got elegant going on now." She pauses, then laughs. "At least, I hope it's just your one chance."

If there's multiples, she may have to have Words on Albert's behalf. Or fists. She's found she's quickly becoming protecting of Albert, possibly as an attempt to keep clinging to people like a barnacle, possibly simply because some people are good enough, deserving enough, pure enough to draw her to them like iron to a magnet.

Her last comment draws his attention and it takes a moment for him to discern the meaning. Once he does, blue eyes settle on her that hold a sincerity and near-wonder in them to accompany his response.

"He's the only person I've ever loved. The only person I ever will. This is my only chance 'cause there won't be another."

He blinked, suddenly hyper aware of how much of himself he'd just laid out in that admission that felt more like clarification, righting a wrong fact she'd had.

Because it was true, He'd fallen in love with Albert when he was legitimately 18-whether he realized it at the time or not-and he hadn't loved anyone else near as much since. It was something Jet had feared for a long time: that Albert had loved Hilda and then loved Jet, proving he could move on...but Jet had never loved anyone before or after and one thing he'd learned from their thirty year separation was that he couldn't move on, he couldn't even try. But that was one fact that had dissipated that fear some: Albert hadn't moved on either. Jet didn't know if he had tried and he honestly never wanted to know, but the fact remained Albert had come back to Jet even after his biggest screw up.

So, yeah, this was his one chance.

His one chance to get married to his partner.

He was getting married.

He was a street punk from the Bronx, he shouldn't be getting married to anyone, much less someone like Albert. But he was. It was like a ton of bricks landing on his head as the realization finally hit him full force, but instead of bury him, it built him up and caused a huge grin to break out across his face.

"Vee!" He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her right off her feet in a huge hug as he spun them around.

"Vee, I'm getting married." He probably sounded like an idiot, but his brain was abuzz with a horrible mixture of excitement and fear that made the sun come out within him.

Edited 2014-10-10 05:06 (UTC)

"Whoa!" She isn't expecting him to suddenly lift her, but she doesn't mind it when he does, once her brain catches up to what's happening. She has a grin as wild as his when he sets her down, and it's as pained and beautiful as the sweetest minor chord, both honestly happy and mournful with envy.

(Envy's a step up, at least - you have to imagine that whatever you're jealous for is something you could have to feel that longing.)

"It just hit you?" She's still got a big smile on as she reaches up and fixes his hair again. "Congratulations, pal."

He's no mind-reader, but what he is is perceptive and he can see that slightly sour note, the sadness in her, it didn't dampen the happiness, he didn't doubt her sincerity, but he wished he could fix it for her. She deserved to be just as happy as he was. He wished he could tell her that.

He slid his arm around her waist and turned back towards the shops.

"I think it's more like I kept waiting for the rug to get pulled out from under me, like the Capitol ruining it or Al changing his mind or something. He'll be the first to tell you I'm thick sometimes."

Never about the people around him, only when it came to himself. He was aware enough of that, at least. He was the first person to notice two of his best friends were falling for each other and the first to pick up on when someone was sad but trying to hide it...but if someone felt something for him it went right over his head. Lucky for him, he'd approached Albert first...not so lucky Albert had decided to answer him in the most backwards way possible to the point where Jet had very nearly socked him in the mouth for it. Good thing it had worked out in the end.

"Come on, let's find something good-looking for us both. Although...these things're supposed to have some kind of theme or something right? I don't even know what it is, Al's been dealing with all that."

It wasn't that Jet didn't care about his own wedding, it was more that he didn't really have an opinion on this part, he'd be happy enough to just say the words they needed to and be married to his partner. Albert had been set to marry someone before Jet, he'd done this and had already thought about what kind of day he'd wanted and while Jet had no doubt there were differences in the vision, a vision still existed. Since he hadn't expected to find himself getting hitched, he'd hardly created 'the perfect day' in his head or anything; even the days where he'd idly allowed the thought across his mind, he'd never gotten any further than 'that'd be nice, too bad it'll never happen.'

Consequently, Albert would ask him his opinion on something and (as long as Jet didn't hate the idea) he'd give some whatever-you-want-dear answer and roll with it. Occasionally, he'd be pressed for an actual answer or one would come to him vaguely and he'd have to suddenly develop an opinion on whatever it was, but it seemed Albert was generally pleased enough to make the decisions for them. It just kinda meant Jet didn't know what was going on.

"You don't have to know the theme...do you have a color scheme, at least? Because that's probably where we should start. How many bridesmaids will there be? I mean, if there are any?" Venus realizes she's probably presuming a lot by assuming that just because she's the wedding singer, she'll also be part of the party - or that there'll be a party at all.

Maybe best to just find a nice dress for herself. She doubts that a simple, classy tux would go amiss on Jet, either.

She pats his forearm, with their arms still linked. She's taking them to the nice part of the Capitol shopping district, even if that means she runs up a credit card debt. She's happy buying clothes for a friend.

"You want my advice, I'd say try not to let that worrying sour the whole thing. Life's too chaotic to waste time predicting it, okay?" She looks him up and down as they walk. "Do you know your measurements?"

He gives a bemused look. "Funny...usually, I'm the one saying that kind of thing. Guess important romantic formal occasions get me rattled." Lord knows he was definitely that sometimes when he thought about it too much. Nothing was really changing...but sometimes it felt like the whole world would once it was over.

"As it happens, I do know them. My old job required those nice tailored suits but...considering what my old job was, I went through them like crazy." Funny how those super nice but often stuffy threads just burst into flame at mach 2.

"The wedding party...well, I guess it's a bunch of 'groom's ladies' or whatever. There's you, of course, Jessica Wakefield, Felecity Worthington and Terezi Pyrope's gonna be flower girl so she counts, I think."

He extended a finger for each name he listed, his mind wandering to them each in turn. Their friends, some of the closest they had in this place. There was a part of him that ached knowing it should be Francoise at Albert's side and Joe at his, the four of them up there with the other seven members of their family settled in the benches of the small church they'd be in, a space big enough for their private bubble of happiness.

Instead, it would end up being some huge event laid out by the Capitol for their own political means as Jessica had set it up, an attempt to get them more publicity and more sponsors. It would be a media circus and odds were that there'd be plenty 'wrong' with it. But...at the same time, their team wasn't here. Fee, Venus, Terezi, Jessica, they were their friends and family too, new additions that were no less important and hardly just 'stand-ins' for the missing. Besides, at the end of the day, he'd still be Jet Heinrich and that was all that really mattered. His eyes stung treacherously so he looked up as though trying to recall what colors his partner had chosen to banish the feeling.

"As for color...gold and silver? I think that's what he was leaning towards..and he chose these orchids, orange ones and white ones with purple in them. But I don't know that I want to match the flowers." Especially since he was 90% sure if there was going to be a bouquet, he was going to be the one who ended up carrying it.

"That enough to work with?"

Venus' face lights up genuinely when Jet confirms she's part of the wedding party. It's a smile that's a little bit too toothy for what she normally gives the cameras, and with her mouth still mangled on one side her gums show boney and pink in a window between her lips, but it's honest.

"I was about to get on his case for mashing metallics, but if he's bringing in purple that should tie it together pretty nice. You should see the flowers the Capitol's capable of. You could use their tulip bulbs as jack-o'-lanterns. But yeah, that's plenty to work with."

There's a boutique down the street, and she takes him into it. The employee inside shoots her a vicious glare, or rather, directs it at her brand, but Venus flashes her credit card up like a fan in front of an uptown lady, and no one says anything.

"So, obviously the Capitol's going to want a little flash to whatever you wear. The trick is always to choose flash you're comfortable with to beat them to the punch. Then they don't try to add more on later." She strokes her chin as she looks at him. "I think maybe a shimmery undershirt would be enough to throw them off. What are your measurements?"

In his opinion, it's a pretty cute smile that gets one from him in response. He liked that smile and he could only imagine how much prettier it would be if it weren't for the branding.

Jack-o'-lantern flowers seemed weird to him, but the fact it was a possibility in the capitol seemed reasonable enough. When they walked into the store, Jet missed the exchange between Venus and the clerks, if he hadn't, he might have had something to say or made them walk out. It wasn't like they had to spend their money here.

But the sight of all the different styles and both strange and familiar fashions had captured his attention.

"Yeah...that sounds good. Something good enough for them but won't make me look like a peacock." He lists her his measurements from memory as he begins idly flicking through some options on display. He honestly has no idea what he's doing. His tailor always just made him something simple and nice and all Jet had to do was trust he'd make him look professional.

"What about this?" Jet pointed something out with complete sincerity. Unfortunately for him. It was a fairly atrocious piece of clothing and probably was a good indicator of his fashion sense.

Venus crunches her lips together and nods as he lists his size and considers what will be most flattering on him. It's not that it'll be terribly difficult; Jet has a pretty nice body. She glances over to where he's gesturing to what has to be the single ugliest piece of clothing she's seen since the last Capitol party.

"Oh...oh." Venus' expression falls somewhere between a cringe and a smile, that sort of face that one pulls when the air of politeness is only an added effect for comedy. "We could dress someone we don't like in that."

Nasir, perhaps. Or Shepard.

"Let's go for something slimming to highlight those long legs of yours."

He looked at the clothing as though trying to figure out what was wrong, when he and Frannie had gone shopping, she'd never seemed to mind his opinions...although they'd always been his opinions on what she was wearing. That was the deal: they helped each other pick out outfits and then helped make the final decisions. It worked best that way since one of them was always so indecisive about what she wanted and the other, left to his own devices, put on bright red pants and a vibrant violet jacket and thought it was a good idea.

He eventually gave up trying to figure out his own inability to make good fashion decisions for himself and deferred to Venus' judgement.

"That'd probably work. Al--" His face flushed lightly as it occurred to him he'd been about to admit that Albert liked Jet's long legs so highlighting them was sure to please his partner. Instead he hurriedly moved on to the next rack to look through that instead.

"Um...aren't, stripes good for that or something? 'Drawing the eye' or whatever?" He was pulling terms he remembered Francoise using, they sounded good to him.

"Yeah, stripes are a good place to start. Maybe pinstripes? They're classic, but I think they might be a little lowbrow for a wedding. Then again I had a cousin who got married in a tube top..."

She pulls out a nicely-cut suit. "So, the tailoring on this might not be there yet, but do you want to try this one on?"

She looks more lively than she has in a while, being good at something. Being helpful in a way that doesn't draw blood.

Jet took the offered suit for himself and gave it a once over then shrugged. Looked good enough to him.

"Sure."

He looked back over to her and his eyes caught on her face, on the way she seemed to be happier, look more at peace, seem more at ease than she usually did. She was comfortable doing this, she liked it and while he could simply blame that on the fact a lot of girls he knew liked shopping, he was aware that didn't apply to all girls. Besides, this gave him an avenue to turn topic back to her a bit, he didn't mind talking about himself to someone he trusted, but if the topic stayed on himself too long, he began to get antsy.

"So, did you used to do something with fashion back home or is this just a hobby for you? Al said something about you singing."

Something about Venus singing was really Albert telling him what Venus told Albert, but Jet wasn't the type to just lay out all he knew, he preferred when the person he was trying to talk to laid it out for him the way they wanted to.

Edited 2014-11-25 00:58 (UTC)

"I was a television star. Reality TV superhero."

She smiles when she says that, the way she might if pitching the idea to someone who wasn't sold on the concept, and then her face gets serious. It's not shame, exactly, that she carries with her; it's acknowledgement of a past as ugly and obvious as a bruise. She escaped from poverty and found herself in the embrace of amorality. It's not who she is anymore.

"We were pretty much mercenaries for the highest bidder with a camera and a red carpet. I got a recording contract through it, and Albert- I guess he could tell I could use a pick-me-up, and he offered to let me sing at the wedding. Try and do something for you guys."

She tilts her head to the side and smiles, slinging another pair of pants over her forearm so Jet can try those next.

Jet shrugged and looked to one of the other racks. Not because he actually was looking at any of the clothes, but because it was easier not to look at her the more dangerously close their conversation stepped towards Stupid Things That Sucked. "We've all got that crap we're not proud of, most of us've got some really bad crap on our boots that we'll never shake, but that doesn't mean it has to effect everything else. But you know that." At least, he got the feeling she did. It was in the way she talked about it, how she held herself and the look in her face as she did. It probably hurt still on some level and it wasn't likely to just go away ever -the things she did and obviously wasn't proud of- but she was moving past it and trying to be someone better than that.

He looked back at her and held his hand out to take the pants she grabbed. "Back home, I'm a traitor to my own government and whether that's a good thing or not just depends on which set of crap I pulled you look at. For years I did stuff I shouldn't've and followed along with some really awful crap because I was too scared of being alone. I made myself a traitor when I tried to go against it late in the game, people got hurt cause of that. The worst of it was that the whole reason I was scared of being alone was cause I'd alienated Al and the others by being an idiot all on my own. That crap I did won't go away, but it's not who I am anymore."

He shrugged again, not really sure what else to say to close that off. He felt comfortable enough with her to share as much as he got in return, but that didn't mean he was good at it. He turned to head into the fitting room but paused and looked back with a handsome smirk. "For the record, I'm sure you're singing's gonna be awesome, I'm glad you'll be doing it."

"It kind of affects everyone else whether we want it to or not." Venus' face keeps up the happy mood, the flighty fashionista flitting between racks of clothing like some bird of paradise - but her voice, her voice. There's a reason Albert found her voice suitable to carry the emotion necessary for a wedding. She carries her sorrows in her vocal cords.

She places the pants in his hand and a palm atop them for just a moment, as if placing a gift in his charge. And then she lets him turn away, lets the conversation trail behind him like a banner, as she thinks of how to react to that.

"I'm scared of being alone too. All the time." She remembers when she stopped screaming when she was eleven, looking around the charred house at the place where her family stood. She remembers. "So sometimes I beat fear to the punch and isolate myself."

Jet went into the dressing room and went about trying things on, but that didn't mean the conversation was over. If anything, it'd be easier, hiding in here. Not that he'd call it that if asked. There's a small pause after he admission were Jet frowns a bit and tries to think of what best to say. He got the feeling they'd already crossed the line into a place where him thinking about what he'd say would result worse than if he just said what words came.

"That's no good, Vee. I mean, I agree, being alone's scary as hell-" he'd pretty much just admitted as much. "-but making yourself lonely just guarantees you will be. I was afraid of losing my family cause we were breaking up the team anyway...so I made myself lose them by walking out."

Or flying out, as the case may be. It still hurt to think about, how mad and hurt he'd been after that argument with Joe and just about everyone else, how pride had convinced him there was no fixing it. 'Fuck off, Heinrich. I'm leaving and you're not going to stop me.' 'No, I'm not. See you, 002.' The echoes of that last conversation liked to boomerang itself across his head whenever he thought of it. There'd been a lot of fault on both their ends for that one, but Jet had started it. He'd pushed them away.

"And if you keep people away from the get-go, then you'll still be lonely. Having something at the risk of losing it's better than not having it at all, you'll miss some great people that way."

He'd pulled that one too. At first, he hadn't wanted anything to do with the rest of the team-even Albert, Frannie and Ivan who he'd known before the escape-all because he'd been afraid they'd betray him if he trusted them and that would hurt too much. Even if there was plenty of pain these days over the thought of never seeing them again, he didn't regret having known them at all.

"Good thing you've already got at least two people you can't shake off so easy." He opened the door to show off the outfit he liked the best, a small smile in place for her. "How do I look?"

"I know you're right." She says that, but the truth is she doesn't know it. Every night losing her family bleeds her out drier than if it had been an open wound; every morning when she wakes, she loses them again as their deaths click back into place. Their memories aren't happy ones, because the joy has been leeched out and been replaced by longing for what she can't ever have again.

And now she's loved again and lost again, and carrying goodness out of those events is harder than any Arena she's ever fought. Hard when any happiness is ringed by a stain of mourning.

"And the fact that you know it's why you're getting married." While he's dressing, she gathers different accessories to compare to the fabric, to his skin tone. Corsages, cufflinks, socks. She glances up when she sees him open the door and grins.

"Better. I bet if you sent Albert that picture he'd put it in his wallet." It's not the outfit she'd have chosen out of the ones he'd taken in there, but there's a difference between being a Stylist and being a friend picking out clothes. She can't force him into one, nor would she want to.

"Yeah? He's that kind of guy, it wouldn't surprise me." Albert was the type who'd keep five pictures of every kid he had and show them to anyone willing to pause for five seconds. Albert would've been a great dad, had things been different.

He let her compare whatever accessories she had to whatever she wanted -it wasn't like he knew any better, he'd probably end up choosing whatever looked good on it's own if left to his own devices. Once she's done, he vanishes into the changing room again to put his own clothes back on.

"Knowing something and actually acting on it's two different things, I get that. Sometimes you just need to be reminded a thousand times before it starts to take."

"Do you want me to? I can totally take a picture." She pulls out her device. "Then again, I don't know what the protocol is on seeing a groomsman before the wedding."

She hums a snatch of something while she sets the accessories aside. "And that's why you're getting married and I'm not. Although to be completely honest, if your future husband was my age and not gay? I might have trouble keeping my paws off."

It's a joke, but it's also truth - she's closer to Albert than she's been to most people here, most people in her entire life.

He knew she was joking, that was her intent, but even though he couldn't tell if it was still true, it wouldn't surprise him. And that was where the hiccup lay, derailing his whole thought-process and throwing him off to the point where he faltered. He was changed back into his own clothes, but he stayed in the fitting room until he could pull everything back in that wasn't supposed to show back up.

They'd talked about this, he and Albert, Jet was supposed to be passed this because there was a ring on his finger proving every insecurity wrong...but seventy years of a certain thought process was hard to kill in a little under one. The fact was that Albert wasn't gay that was part of the reason it had taken so long for them to get together when Jet first told him he was interested: Albert hadn't allowed himself to consider men because, for them in their time, it wasn't 'right.' So, while Albert was technically interested in both genders, Jet was hyper aware of the fact his wasn't Albert's default.

Jet was the only man in Albert's life, but he'd been intending to marry a woman before they crashed and she died, but then there'd been other women all through their lives as cyborgs who'd all shown an interest in the German. Most of them had been shut down fast, but there were a handful who'd gotten close to Albert...even while he was with Jet. Albert had never strayed, physically at least, but it was the emotional that Jet feared. For seventy years he'd been living under the impression that he was the placeholder for the right woman and, once she came along, Jet wouldn't be anything anymore. Bina, Lady, they'd both been close to Albert, but not even as close as Albert was with Venus.

Not that he thought Venus was going to try anything or that Albert would go with her instead, they'd both made that clear...but the thought hadn't even entered his head till a second ago and now that insecurity was rushing back up to wrap around his stomach and heart and bunch up in his throat to try and choke him.

"Well..." Jet paused, catching how off his voice sounded in the second it took for him to falter and recover enough to speak. He closed his eyes tight and mentally imagined forcing it back into his depths, back to the corner he'd shoved it before, not gone but not a lingering note at the tail of his relationship either.

When he spoke again with barely even a pause in his speech, his voice was lower but back to normal. "He's not gay so much, he's always liked women too, I guess I just got lucky, somehow." For whatever reason, Albert was his despite all odds and while he tried not to question it for fear of losing it, he knew he shouldn't have had a chance.

He left the fitting room only a few seconds later than he should have and had a smile in place for her when he did. It wasn't her fault she felt like that, it only made sense when Albert was who he was. Jet had loved him for decades for that reason and it wasn't like he was the only one with eyes. Besides, Venus was Jet's friend, even if he thought maybe she didn't feel wholly the same, he still cared about her. "But, yeah, he's a bit of an old man, even when he was thirty, he acted like he was twice that. Anyway, should we get this one and go to lunch, or should we look somewhere else?"

"Jeez, Jet, you haven't died in there, have you?" She asks from outside the dressing room, oblivious to the tailspin her idle comment has placed him in. She hums a snatch of something, a pop song from her era with a title and an artist she forgot.

If she weren't so good at reading people, she might have missed the way his tone pitched lower, like a paper airplane losing altitude.

"Oh." She raises her eyebrows and blinks, the image of owlish surprise.

"I didn't realize- I didn't mean anything by that. I just assumed, since he never tried anything and most guys do-" Often regardless of age or propriety. Hollywood plays by its own rules.

But there isn't really a way to salvage that, and so when Jet suggests they go elsewhere, she leaps on that. "Let's do lunch and we can brainstorm a second place."

Grateful that she took the subject change, his smile turned more genuine as he gathered the rejects to set aside for the shopkeepers.

Once they were back out on the street, he gestured to the seemingly endless options of eateries. "Pick one, lunch is on me, so choose whatever you want." After all, she was spending her day helping him to not be a fashion disaster, the least he could do was treat her to lunch.

"Let's try something new. I still haven't really done as much exploring as I'd like to with these new tastebuds." She takes his arm again, leaning forward a bit onto her platform toes to look beyond him. "I think there's a place down that street that does like, noodles in peanut sauce? Sounds terrible to me but it's worth a try, right?"

He laughed. "Sounds pretty damn awful, but why not?" He offered her his arm again and led them down the street towards their culinary exploration.

Once they were seated with drinks and their potentially misadventurous orders placed, Jet felt back to the way he'd been before the awkward conversation in the dressing room. Which prompted him to think back to what Albert had said only a little while ago, something Jet had been meaning to ask Venus but hadn't really had the chance. Plus, he wasn't a hundred percent sure he should ask or how. Well, no, he should at least tell her he knew otherwise he was basically lying to her and that wasn't good friendship.

His thinking led to him being silent a bit longer than he should have been, which probably left an impression that wasn't all that great to send, now that he thought about it.

"Well, I'm thinking back where I'm from it would have been Thai food. Maybe. Everything here's just a little bit different than what I remember from back home. It's all delicious but none of it's right." Then again, because she went for a decade without tastebuds, she may just be comparing what she's fed here with an impossible paradigm in her imagination.

And so it is when she looks at the menu. There are things that might be pad thai, but they have cloves in them. Fried shrimp not in coconut, but pineapple. It's all a little off from her memories.

She spends a while on the menu before realizing that she might be being rude, that Jet's silence could very well be impatient. "Sorry, I'm- you okay?"

He snaps his attention back to her and out of staring off into space, a small sheepish smile developing as he became self-aware. "Yeah, sorry, I was thinking 'bout something. Talking about Al reminded me he told me something the other day." Maybe he should wait, what if it got awkward again because it wasn't something he was supposed to know? Maybe he should play it off and think of a better way to bring it up sometime, maybe- "Something you told him." -well now it was too late.

He shifted a bit but kept his attention on her. He wasn't nervous about the information itself, it didn't bother him, it was the fact he knew it and she didn't know he knew it, so the only way to fix that really was to tell her, otherwise it would play at the back of his head like a broken record every time he saw her and didn't tell her.

"He told me your real name...and I know you only told him, so I wanted you to know I knew it too or it'd be too much like lying to you. For the record, I think it's pretty." He waited, wanting to judge her reaction before he asked his follow-up question. How she reacted could possibly answer it without him asking.

She tilts her head as he begins to talk, a knot in her brow forming from inquisitiveness more than anything else. There's a shade of suspicion, because of the personal nature of the things she told Albert, but she trusts Albert well enough to safeguard the horrors of her depression. Of her bipolar disorder.

"Oh, I..."

She isn't sure what to say for a moment, and her mouth gawps like a fish over her noodles until she reaches up and takes a drink of her icewater.

"It's not even like a name, you know? It's like a...a whole different person."

He'd take surprised over angry. Her response pulled half a smile onto his face and he looked down to contemplate his own drink. "Yeah, I get what you mean." That...was actually really nice to hear on some level. He'd never met someone who felt the same, not that he thought there weren't others in their same basic position, he just hadn't talked to them.

He hesitated a moment, the ill-fated smile slipping from his face, though nothing truly sour took it's place. "I wasn't born 'Jet Link' that's not really a name parents give their kids...it was a name I picked when I was a kid, like a goal for myself."

Jet Link was the kid who fought back against his monsters and escaped hell through his own strength. Jet Link wasn't weak and scared all the time, Jet Link didn't have to hurt or feel hopeless and caged, he could fly away and be whatever or whoever he wanted to be without all those shadows following him around.

Of course, Jet Link had picked up his own shadows and his own monsters, but he'd learned to fight those too because he'd done it before. He had to wonder if Venus felt the same. "Do you like 'Venus' more? I'd like to call you by whatever you feel is more you, if that'd be okay."

A smile washes across her face.

"I figured. Figured that you always wanted to fly." Just as she figured, even though he never said it, that Jet and his parents weren't close. She remembers vividly the way he looked at her - with concern and knowing - when she was falling-down sick-drunk. She has her theories and she's too gentle to ask them. She's sure her past and Jet's are more similar than they'd like to admit.

"I'm Venus in the Arena. That's for sure." She exhales deep between her semi-pursed lips, just shy of a whistle. It shouldn't be a loaded question, a handful of seven letters. Strange, the things that psychology can do, the ways the brain can stitch identities into a chain of syllables. "I think- I'm okay with you calling me Delilah outside the Arena. Just not in front of everyone. It's not like they can't look up my name, but there's some people who honestly don't deserve to say it."

And like that, a bit of her bold, elitist spirit sparks up, the part of her personality that's a pickaxe. It comes with a smile and a derisive snort as she thinks about Shepard and Tom Cassidy.

His smile returns more gentle, though with an edge of amusement to it. He could imagine not wanting just anyone to use a name you barely even used. And if people could look it up, then he could always defend her name if someone who wasn't supposed to have it started using it.

"Fair enough. Delilah when it's not an arena and Venus to everyone else all of the time." He paused and his smile turned even softer. "Thank you. Honestly, I was a little afraid you'd be mad I knew, I know I'd be mad if someone just found out my real name without me giving it." Which...made him wonder if Venus wanted to know what it was. Of course, he didn't even know if he wanted to give it.

It wasn't a bad name, he just had bad things associated to it. So...maybe the answer was to give it to someone who didn't have anything to do with that bad stuff. He looked down to his water and swirled it around with the straw. If he gave it to her, that would make her the first person ever. He hadn't even given it to Albert, his partner had learned it from Jet's mother when she'd been in the Capitol.

"It's Gianni...my old name, I mean. I figure it's only fair, considering. Kinda a stupid name, right?" He didn't know what he was hoping she'd think of it, but he did know that -as weird as it was to admit it after decades of ignoring it- he didn't regret telling her.

"I wasn't about to be mad you knew. I've been a celebrity, I'm kind of used to people getting their noses in everything from my legal documents to me gynecology records."

She doesn't ask what his name is, because she figures if he wants to volunteer it he will - and so he does, just a moment later. She takes it with the reverence she believes it necessitates, her lips slightly parted, eyes alert. She needn't say the words 'thank you' for him to understand that she is treating it as a gift.

"I don't know, I think it's nice. But hey, I think it's a personal rite to hate your own name. There's a song called 'Hey There Delilah' in my timeline, and if I didn't think my name was stupid before I sure did after that came out." A little bit of that good humor starts to come over her again, like the warmth of the sun creeping up a cold marble wall.

That warmth spreads onto her and Jet picks up on it, reflecting it in the smile he gives her, one full of humor but also of gratitude, gratitude that she was okay with him having that piece of her and gratitude at being able to hand her a piece of himself and know she'd take care of it just as he'd take care of hers.

"Yeah, that sounds like it'd suck. The celebrity thing and the song thing, I don't envy you." He'd had people prying into his life before, but not such a wide and truly annoying group as social media, just jackass scientists and politicians.

His hand finds it's way across the table to hers, giving it a brief but tight squeeze. He'd never be able to say half the stuff he had in his head right this moment, but hopefully that would get at least a portion across. "Thanks, Vee. For...today..lots of things." He shrugged and quickly turned his attention to their food as he pulled his hand back. The moment was there, but now he waved it on as though afraid of the emotions attached.

"Anyway, we should probably eat our lunch so we can move on, yeah?" He couldn't quite meet her gaze at that moment and he hoped she could forgive him for not being able to give her the words and appreciation she deserved, but the more depth his emotions gained, the harder it was for him to process and express.

"Eh. It was a life. I'll take people prying over people not caring at all, I guess." If people care - even about the superficial stuff, her hair and her nails and what she's wearing on the red carpet - then it can provide a little support against crumpling, because she has no foundation of self-love and none of family.

At least, until recently.

She squeezes his back too, tight and surprised, and is both relieved and longing when he takes his hand away. She wanted to hold it more. She wasn't expecting it and isn't sure if her response was the right one.

"Sounds good. We got a lot of places to hit before we rest tonight."

[Closed] Get in, loser, we're going shopping

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