Mini-Arena Reaping

[etcircenses]

Who| All Tributes, mentors, stylists, escorts, and some citizens.
What| The mini-arena reaping.
Where| The grand foyer of the Tribute Center.
When| 7pm Thursday (11/6). Please note: This log is forward dated by one week.
Warnings/Notes| Unhappy tributes.

At approximately 5pm Thursday, all of the Tributes were notified that their presence would be required at a mandatory meeting in the grand foyer of the Tribute Center. It was to be a formal occasion, and all of the stylists were instructed to dress their Tributes in their autumn best. At 8pm, Peacekeepers arrived at each floor to escort the Tributes down to the foyer, which had been decorated in a playful, nostalgic manner. The Tributes were seated at one of twelve large, numbered tables, though they were told they could mingle, dance, or help themselves to as much punch as they'd like. By all appearances, this little fete was nothing more than a typical, if somewhat bizarre Capitol celebration.

[ooc notes: General arena information can be found here. If you would like for your adult character to react violently/riot after the reaping, you must comment to this post.]

Comments

[sizeofyourbaggage]

Hey, now, his jokes are fantastic.

“Got you to laugh though, didn’t it?” he replies with a small smile, just a quick flash of teeth, though he doesn’t really turn his gaze away from Barnes. It also got Barnes to stop, but that’s not so much a commentary on the quality of his jokes as the fact that confusion and thought-interrupting apparently work in snapping him out of this.

Or at least, starting to snap him out of it.

“The only mission you’ve got right now is coming back to us. You remember some of the things we talked about, up on the roof?”

[aboveangrybees]

"Laughing doesn't mean it's any good," Steve sends Sam an amused look, but his attention is still primarily Bucky's. It seems that Sam's technique worked, distracted him and made him think, enough to start to snap him out of the Asset's mindset. Enough so for Steve to not have to jump in. (Yes, Steve could say those words and knows that Bucky would stand down instantly, but this isn't about that, it's about Bucky finding his way back out of his head when he needs to and not relying on commands.)

He steppes close though, moving to gently bump shoulders with Bucky, feeling it's safe to now. A show of not treating him like a time bomb or like glass but like normal. Steve looks where Bucky is looking, where the peacekeepers and children's disappeared, he has no idea what the two talked about on the roof, but he trusts them enough not to worry about it.

"Sam's right," he looks at Bucky again. "As fun as it was last time, I'm not too keen on us going to jail again." Yep, us, because if Bucky was getting arrested, Steve would have ended up going down with him.

[tookthewheel]

The contact jolts him and Bucky turns his head to Steve, finally letting his arm drop back down to his side.

"I remember." he's talking to Sam, even if he's looking at Steve. Grounding techniques, keeping himself in the present and not letting the conditioning take him over. Bucky clenches his right hand and takes a moment to just breathe, it's the easiest technique to reach for in the moment. Between that and the gentle pressure of Steve's shoulder against his he starts to pull himself back, inch by inch.

The more he regains himself the worse the anger feels, tempered by an inability to reasonably do anything about it. Aang is gone and all he'll accomplish by attacking the Peacekeepers is getting himself, and Steve, harmed. He hates that implication that Steve would get himself thrown in with Bucky (but of course Bucky would do the same if things were the other way around).

"You're not going to jail."