thecapitol | We'll just march to some new place and somebody else will die

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We'll just march to some new place and somebody else will die

Who| Nick and OTA
What| Newly arrived Nick gathers his bearings...or tries to?
Where| Bar & rooftop of the Training Center
When| 10/21, afternoon?
Warnings/Notes| Spoilers for up to Amid the Ruins (episode 4).

Bar

[Nick didn't appreciate having rules imposed on him the moment he woke up here. The barrage of so much information was beyond overwhelming but never had he felt more frustrated at still feeling as if he had no idea what the hell was going on. The sight of a bed was comforting, but he couldn't bring himself to sleep despite knowing how deprived he had been.
He made a beeline for the bar as soon as he heard that such amenities were free. He had to see it to believe it because the world didn't work like that and it never had.

A serving of fries was all it took for him to remember how fucking hungry he initially was. Two burgers and two very free whiskeys later, he finds himself ready for a third helping. Knowing the fact that his freedom was more or less traded for all this makes him order another glass. It's stupid, but he needs to forget even for just a little while. Forget this place; forget the last moment he recalled being alive before he felt that lurker's teeth sink into his neck.

He downs the whiskey in one go, letting its warmth settle into him as he stares at the empty glass.]

Rooftop

[He hasn't seen a city, let alone any form of civilization, in a while. A very small part of him takes comfort in that he doesn't have to worry about the possibility of lurkers bursting in at any minute. But the rest of him knows that his experience of his place so far goes to show how much more dangerous the living are as opposed to the dead. In a way, this isn't much different from living under Carver's control; there's food, shelter - and while there aren't any lurkers, they're still fighting for their lives. There's some form of safety but their lives are still at risk. And this time, it's for the enjoyment of others like some seasonal baseball game.

There's always a catch with these things. That thought alone makes him tick.

He pulls his sleeve back to look at the watch Pete gave him and remembers his late uncle's words.

"...nobody in this world is ever gonna give a god damn whether you like something or not."]

Ain't that the truth... [He pauses, as if expecting a response.] Especially right now. [He leans back against his chair and looks over at the city, watch still ticking.]

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Venus' timer has gone off. She's spent too many hours at the gym today, pushing her body to its limits, and the shrill whine of her stopwatch has told her that taking it further than she has would be irresponsible. The logical part of her agrees, but her heart wants to continue pushing herself, drowning her worries in adrenalin and endorphins; still, her exhausted body agrees with reason.

She showers. She puts her red-dyed hair up in a bandana. She puts on a dress with patterns of birds tumbling down her shoulders.

Some days, she feels strong enough to go out in public, big sunglasses hiding the worst of the disfiguring brand over half her face. Some days she doesn't, and even the siren's call of retail therapy and sorbet can't coax her. She doesn't realize it's one of the latter days until she's already put on makeup and jewelry.

She heads up to the roof instead, hoping for a little peace and quiet, wondering if the wind will be too bad for her to read her bland magazine about diet tips and interpreting flirting. She's slumped down in a chair before she looks over and realizes there's someone else there, quietly watching the city.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't realize anyone was up here." She closes her magazine. "I'm not bothering you, am I?"

Nick's practically slouching on the chair now, eyes slowly closing as he takes in a deep breath. The roof's a good place to be, he thinks. The view helps to put a pause at the thoughts of what if's and maybe's that constantly cross his mind. But it's hard to even enjoy anything not knowing what happened to the others in is group. To say that his last memories before waking up here were not pleasant is an understatement of the century. It was a downright nightmare that seemed to have gone on for too long.

Although he's here now, cleaned up and no longer surrounded by undead, the sound of Carlos's gurgles and Sarah's screams for her dad as lurkers just pile on him, the feeling of the bullet going right through Nick's shoulder faster than he can run, and later, the sight of Sarah curled up and remaining unresponsive at their attempts to reach her -

The sudden image of a bloodied sky - the very last thing he saw before he realized a lurker got him in the neck - return to him moments before his eyes shoot open and he wakes with a gasp. His eyes blink several times before they settle on the woman sitting near him.

"Uh, no." He clears his throat, voice rather hoarse now as he comes back to this bizarre reality. "It's fine."

He's pretty glad that she did, actually.

Edited 2014-10-24 09:18 (UTC)

"Okay. Good." She cracks her reading open again and pops some mint-flavored gum into her mouth.

She could just sit there in the chair and ignore him. God knows that lately she's found people jarring her out of her little depressed stupors to be completely intolerable. She wants to keep her sulking to herself. That's why she mostly hides in her room.

So why can't she extend the same courtesy to him?

She closes her magazine again and rests it over her knee, then looks at him. "You okay, newbie? You look kind of...like you're not taking this all super well."

He sits up a little bit more to lean his head back and lets out a drawn out sigh, looking up at the sky for a moment as if to make sure it wasn't red. He turns his gaze towards the other buildings now and the sight of it just makes him irritated again.

Nick has a decent poker face - better than Luke's even, but today he doesn't seem to make the conscious effort to hide anything other than his worries. It isn't surprising for him to know that there may be some tributes that can get over the idea of the Games sooner than others, but Nick isn't one of them.

"Who the hell would unless they're a fucking psychopath?" He snaps, but a look of shame quickly appears before he rubs his eyes and looks at her apologetically this time. This time he answers quietly. "I thought bein' up here to catch some air would help but..."

Venus flinches back as if she's been smacked, not because of the tone of his words, not because she's scared of him in any way, but because of what they mean.

She was perfectly happy when she first arrived in Panem. The madness of this rotten government made perfect sense to her and fit her as easily as air in her lungs. It's only recently, only in the last few months, that her growing conscience dumped cold water on her comfortable fires.

"Well, give it time. It might help." She bites her tongue, exhales deeply. "I'm Venus. What's your name?"

Nick's not aware of who she is or what she can do, let alone how much his carelessly spoken words affected her. He knows though, that he shouldn't have responded like that even if he firmly believes that it's true.

He wants to tell her that he's been "giving it time" for a long ass time but want to spew his life story to her. "It's Nick."

He avoids the feeling of wanting to look away, but keeps his gaze steady on her. "Sorry about that."

"It's okay. It's accurate." It's quite possible she was a psychopath, or at least pretty devoid of humanity. Humanity, for all that people laud it, is ugly and ungainly and painful. Opening yourself up to the world means letting knives and needles in along with sunlight and ocean breezes.

She lets the magazine flop over the edge of the chair and lie, splayed awkwardly, on the stones that mark a path through the roof garden.

"For what it's worth, it's not all bad here. I mean, the other Tributes can be pretty decent." She realizes how stupid that sounds, given that they're all there to kill each other.

Decent. Nick thought Bill was “decent” before it became too late for him to realize otherwise. Escaping that warehouse lead to one long downward spiral of death and regrets. It had been that way for Nick from the very beginning really, but walking through that horde the first (and only) time for him was a different level of hell. So is this place, no matter how "less bad" it seems.

He looks at Venus in some half-assed attempt to study her. “Have you killed anyone then?”

Getting right to the meat of it. She doesn't cringe this time. She folds one leg over the other and looks out over the glittering city and then back to him, as if she isn't afraid to own her gory title.

"I have the highest kill count of any of the Tributes here." No point in hiding it, no point in trying to pretend she isn't only a participant in the Games but one of the ones with the bloodiest commendations. "Twenty-two people over six Arenas."

The horror in his eyes flashes only briefly before he looks away with a frown, even more uncertain about his own future here. “Jesus.”

Is that what it’s going to be like for him now? Even if he somehow can bring himself to kill someone that isn’t some asshole, can he live with himself for another moment longer to do it again? The thought of it makes his blood run still. He's killed a man before, granted it was out of misunderstanding, but no amount of time allowed to him will get him to forgive himself for it.

“I don’t care what you get out of it,” he says with narrowed eyes. “It ain’t right. None of this is!”

"I don't get anything out of it."

Venus' teeth seem to crack against each other as she says that, as if she's holding a flash of lightning in her mouth. It's not a total truth - she gets a sense that she's a divine judge and jury, sentencing to death those who aren't as worthy as her loved ones of success. She feels like a provider for the children she's taken under her wing. But she doesn't get a kick, doesn't get that bloodlust that some people do, and she needs to separate herself from that, and as such she sounds angry when she corrects Nick.

She keeps her eyes on him, even as he looks away.

"No, it ain't right. But you work within the system. And you get to learn the system before you start casting judgments around."

Nick's eyes remains steady but soften the moment he lets Venus's words sink in, as if trying to understand the weight of her words while feeling her burning gaze on him. He hadn't meant for her to take it personally but then again he'd react way worse if the position was reversed.

Then Pete's voice echo in his mind again. Nick had brushed him off then only to lose his uncle a few moments later. They were arguing for a moment and then in just a blur Pete was gone. He looks up at Venus again with tired eyes that has seen so much and lost much more. Life moves on so quickly for him that he can barely keep up. And here, he's definitely a fish out of the water.

"I'm sorry."

And he means it. Here, he's never felt more at a loss of what to do than ever.

Edited 2014-11-05 09:14 (UTC)

She doesn't know what he's apologizing for - the words or whatever circumstances forced her into life as a killer, as the most prolific killer in the Tribute Center. She finds that she only cares about the former, doesn't care to expose the raw nerves of the latter, and so she chooses to interpret it in the kindest fashion. Her mother always told her to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Besides, he's new. Just because she arrived her roses and sunshine doesn't mean she should expect it from anyone else. Especially not people who carry dark forests in their eyes, caves filled with ghosts, oceans with wrecks under the surface.

Her eyes used to be free of those, too. She's come a long way since then.

"Apology accepted, Nick." She says his name like it's a toy in her mouth, like she's testing it out to see if it fits him. "So. Where you from?"

He acknowledges that with a short nod. Nick's so used to being on the receiving end of the benefit of the doubt. He's so used to hoping and praying that others see a strength in him that even he has a hard time seeing. He's been spoiled by it and he knows it - which still doesn't do much for his confidence at the end of the day. Nonetheless, he's learned to do the same for others as well as how hard it can be to do so.

"North Carolina," he answers simply, before things went black for him. Before he last felt that lurker bite his neck. "You?"

"Georgia. I thought your accent sounded familiar." She waves a hand at her own mouth and, inadvertently, at the awful scar like a splatter of pain across her face. "It's been a while since I been home, though."

Her accent's faded, practically Californian by now.

Nick allows himself to smile a little at the familiarity. His accent is nowhere near as strong as Luke's, but it does sometimes come and go. Outside of moving to North Carolina from California when he was a kid, he never did much traveling otherwise. Running for your life from lurkers doesn't count either.

The scar gets his attention, but Nick doesn't want to potentially sour the mood that already seems to be lightened up.

"Been a while since I had a home." He doesn't say it to make it into a contest, but it's true. "Settling down never really was much of an option when you got dead things tailin' you all the time."

So much for keeping it light.

Whether or not he meant to make things dark, Venus laughs. It wasn't that long ago that she responded to similar idle conversations with an unintentional, deadpan "all my friends die". She understands the language of the bereaved and the terrorized. It's a kind laugh, one that papers over any awkwardness despite being laced with sympathy and, more importantly, understanding.

"True that." She wonders - zombies? The Capitol sure likes zombie survivors, or maybe the percentage of universe with an undead plague are higher than she imagined. "I been here two years and it still doesn't feel like home, so I can't guarantee that's going to change for you."

"If it doesn't, I'll take it as a good sign." So the fact that they're stuck is as good as it gets for now. Whether they end up escaping or not, it's hard for him to imagine having any sort of a normal life again. Nick doesn't laugh along but manages a half smile instead, though even that doesn't last.

"But...damn, two years?" Venus had been killing people for that long whether she wanted to or not. Even roughly within that same amount of time, Nick had never killed anyone that wasn't a lurker. That is, not until the more recent events in his life.

He looks down at his hands and for a split second he could've sworn he saw bloodstains. "Fuck," he mutters before burying his face in his hands to hide the images, but it only makes the face of his mom and the portrait of Walter and Matthew more apparent in his mind. That quickly makes him pull away, gray-blue eyes now looking at Venus rather helplessly.

"I can't do this. I know we don't got a choice but...fuck."

He can barely live with himself as it is.

Venus used to be better at hiding her bleeding heart, the one that just weeps for the better nature of humanity. She isn't anymore, and that's why she reaches out now and considers placing her hand on Nick's shoulder, then decides better of it and takes his hand. Her own eyes, darker than his, are warm and anything but helpless.

"I've seen people a lot worse off than you seem keep themselves together for a good few Arenas." Even if it seems like everyone breaks eventually. It took her two years but by the end of the last Arena she was the worst she's ever been. Her own suicidal end to that Arena has left a hole blown in her. She doesn't know if her concept of herself will ever recover, or if she's cut off her chances at self-esteem right at the knee.

"People are really good at adapting. Just take it a breath at a time. Trust me, I'm a pro." She isn't sure whether she's joking or not at that last bit, but it comes out wry anyway.

Nick tenses at the contact but doesn't pull away. For all his tough talk, he practically wears his heart on his sleeve. All the glares and back-talks are not much more than efforts to keep it from slipping and end up on the ground. His mind too, would slip into dark places sometimes. It wasn't just the alcohol talking at the time - he really wanted Clementine to leave him behind back at that distillery. Losing everyone he knew one by one and his uncle's death was the straw that broke the camel's back.

But as easily as he can fall into despair, there's always that glimmer of hope in him that's as small as it is stubborn. There's still a will to live in him and an even stronger one to protect those he cares about. He doesn't want to know how the Arenas will change him because he doubts it'll ever be for the better. Maybe the same can be said for the others when they were new, including Venus.

"It's just gonna be like this from here on out, huh?" He recalls asking Luke this too, when it became apparent that dealing with the dead was part of their lives now. "You ever thought about escaping somehow?" There's no tone to suggest such a thing and it's barely spoken as a whisper, but he just had to ask.

Venus opens her mouth but chokes on that sound, because the truth is, she hasn't. Her own escape is such a low priority on her list that is hardly even on her radar. Her efforts have all been focused on wrapping herself like protective coating around other people and making herself invisible in the process.

"Some people deserve to get out and some people deserve to clear the way," she decides on, saying it with a level of solemnity that surpasses just her voice and settles in her eyes and the sunrise of pink flesh on her lower lip. "Not that there are any options right now."

There are, but she can't tell Nick that here on the roof. Maybe if she finds him in a blind spot sometime she'll explain.

Nick had expected a simple yes or no answer. He's sure that there is one but for obvious reasons it appears to be difficult to say (he remembers that they're constantly monitored and her brand offered another possible hint). Nonetheless, he takes in the weight of the response given to him, looking at her apologetically for even asking.

"When I got here I thought this place was reserved for people that..." Murdered? Sinned?

"...fucked up. Royally." He decides firmly, as if to own up to all of his previous mistakes right at this moment. His tone soon deflates to that of uncertainty though. "But then I saw kids and a couple of my friends..." A sigh escapes him as he runs his free hand down his face. It would've been slightly easier for him to accept all this otherwise.

Venus' laugh is ugly and dry.

"It'd be a way easier place if it were just Hell, right?" She reaches over and takes that free hand, so she's holding both of his. She looks down at them, rubs her thumb over the pale lightly-veined backs. At this moment, she feels entitled to touch but not to meet his eyes. There's something too intimate about looking into someone's soul when they talk about damnation.

"It'd make it easier to kill people if our souls were all on the same footing, I mean." She exhales deep through her nose. "But there's no rhyme or reason here."

She came up here expecting to read a magazine, to relax. Instead she feels her soul upturned yet again.

Nick's been told several times in his life before that his eyes are probably his best feature. He doesn't believe it himself. They're as expressive as they've always been but lately have since been overwhelmed and tired by constant anger and pain. What's left behind is a gaze that has since been dulled by what he has experienced. There's no going back from it.

"Yeah, I guess." It'd still be a hard pill for him to swallow, but the reality is that he can't see himself winning. He doesn't want to win, not for something like this. Looking at their hands, he doesn't know what to make of the contact, though he figures it's meant to be comforting. Right now though, he just feels like he's wasting this woman's time with his weaknesses.

"Listen, Venus - I'm sorry for...well, sayin' that shit earlier." He apologized already but apologies never come out only once from Nick. "I don't wanna take up anymore of your time."

"I didn't come up here because I had things worth doing with my time, honey." She settles back into her seat, pulling her magazine out. "Only so long I can spend at the gym a day before my Stylist starts worrying about me getting man-shoulders."

She cracks open the trash rag to some bullshit about how celebrities are like everyone else because they eat muffins and wear shoes, intent to let Nick have his sunset or peace of mind or whatever he came to the roof for.

But she still needs the last word. "But again. Apology accepted."

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We'll just march to some new place and somebody else will die

Rooftop

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[cw: suicide]

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wrap?