open.

[marcato]

WHO| Aunamee and you.
WHAT| He likes the attention.
WHERE| Performing Arts Center OR any restaurant OR the tribute tower.
WHEN| Post Arena 05.
WARNINGS| Sadism.

Aunamee wore his fame well.

As a young boy, he had been taught to annunciate his syllables and look people in the eye. He had learned to remember faces. Names. He had learned humility and had he learned to smile, wide and bright, his lips choreographed dancers. Upon arriving in the Capitol, the transformation from murderer to celebrity was second nature (or perhaps first nature?) for Aunamee. He said yes to every sponsor. He said yes to every picture. He allowed citizens to stop him on the street and ask him questions, and when they did, he treated them with a gentle patience. He spent the majority of his kill credits buying Howard dinner, but the rest of it he spent on strangers. He gave them flowers. Meals. Drinks.

(He will erase those pictures of his dead face. He will erase those pictures of his rage.)

In the evenings, he would loiter outside the performing arts center until he could convince one of the Capitol families to buy him a ticket to the opera, the orchestra. He would wait near restaurants until someone asked him to be their special, mealtime guest.

In the nights -- the late nights -- he wandered the training center, memorizing faces of the people who were still awake. Memorizing names.

Comments

[gruesome]

Some was always awake late, and occasionally he roamed the hallways, or simply rode the elevator up and down, staying on it no matter what floor it was called to, no matter who got on or off.

[marcato]

He entered the elevator at the ground floor with tired eyes and a full stomach (he had managed two dinners today, two opportunities to mingle with Capitol citizens) but all of his energy returned to him when he recognized Some. The man-eater. Aunamee had treated himself to samples of every death -- for the sake of both strategy and entertainment.

"Seven, please."

[gruesome]

Sitting upright, Some looked over at the other man as the doors slid shut, and smiled a polite greeting. He didn't know this one, hadn't seen him on the ice. "Hello."

.infinity

[president_evil]

It was like being home, in a way. Back before the screaming, the blood, the infected slouching through the streets. If Umbrella had been able, willing, to hang its bloody skeletons out for the world to see. If the world had looked back and smiled adoringly.

It was refreshing. It was comfortable. A niche Wesker folded himself into neatly.

They simpered and scraped around him, acquiescing to his whims with breathless whispers. He called them with a gesture, sent them away with a look. A man in his element - a king before his court.

He claimed the best table and looked out upon the city.

There were worse places to start from.

[marcato]

"You're royalty," he said.

A 'king before his court' was how Aunamee would describe it, too. He had been watching Wesker from several tables away, sneaking glance after glance whenever his hosts turned their attention away from him. When dinner was through and his dear old Capitol friends had asked if he wanted to join them for a drink, Aunamee declined. No thank you, he had said. He'd like to linger a little longer.

He approached Wesker's table without a greeting, without preamble. He rested his hand on the table, index and middle fingers bent like miniature legs.

"One might say you're accustomed to it."

[president_evil]

"I must say, there is a certain ease to it."

There was no food at Wesker's table, no fine china. No beaming Capitol hosts. He sat alone. Did not eat.

But he did drink. A bloody red wine from a long-stemmed glass that waited beside slender, pale fingers of his left hand. (Deceptively elegant hands. The hands of a violinist, an artist. Not the hands that had wrot such easy destruction in the arena.)

"But royalty may be a bit strong. Were I, in fact, you would have waited to be called."

A rebuke. But gentle. Amused. He was feeling accommodating tonight.

[cherrypie]

De was a staple of that night crowd.

During the day it was easy to keep up a front of sharp anger (and not too much, not to the wrong person, she'd gotten that figured out quickly enough) and flirting around, and being charming, or at least palatable, until she could figure out how the fuck to get out of here.

But at night it was harder to keep up any facade at all. At night she missed Sammy, missed shit a home she'd never thought twice about like the hum of pop machines and pattern the stripe made on the road at night. At night she wondered again and again if this wasn't actually hell after all.

The roof was cold, damn cold, but she would rather be cold up there tonight, bundles in many layers, where she could look up and see something at least a little familiar. The city lights drowned out many of them, but the stars over the Rockies were still the same ones she always knew.

[marcato]

Aunamee hated being alone. He hated it when he was content, he hated it when he was depressed, and he hated it especially when he was contemplative. As such, the only reason he went up to the roof tonight was because he had heard someone go up there.

Roofs. What better place to find the broken, the despairing?

"Good evening," he said, stepping out into the gardens. "I didn't think I would find anyone up here."

[cherrypie]

"I doubt many people wanna freeze their balls off."

She glanced over, to measure up her new company. She recognized the man from the recaps, and a red flag went up in the little catalog of her mind. In there, she knew people had to be cracking, and she wouldn't judge anyone's character solely on just that...but his last fight had been brutal enough to make him of note.

"Better up here, than down there, though."

[needsaprince]

Lottie spent the days keeping herself busy, busy busy. She had learned the best way to deal with it was to not. Party during the day, keep herself active, exhaust herself by the night time so she got something resembling a solids night sleep. At least enough so she could repeat it.

Which made her popular enough in the Capitol, at least. And how she found herself seated next to Aunamee, part of a larger dinner crowd, happy to score not just one, but two Tributes at their table.

"Good evening!"

[marcato]

She felt so out of place with the other tributes that Aunamee couldn't help looking at her like a curiosity. She was a plate of caviar at a barbecue. A gold cobblestone in a dusty alleyway.

"Ah," he said, his lips flashing into a smile. "How lucky."

[needsaprince]

"Lucky?"

Lottie arched a blond brow, giving him a charming smile. Because she hoped she knew what was coming next, it wouldn't be the first time. But a lady never assumed.

The Opera House

[thebiddingbaron]

Baron would never, ever bid on someone like Aunamee. He's beautiful, but his antics in the Arena show how disturbed her is. No, someone like this man is good to take on a date to scare other citizens, to give his friends a thrill, but not to take to bed.

Still, when he sees the Tribute outside of the opera house he smiles pleasantly. "Ah, my dear Tribute. Are you going to the opera?"

[marcato]

"Baron Bartlett," he said. He had done his research. Without his telepathy, he should be nagged by the doubt, by the question of whether or not he had identified the right man, but these Capitol citizens, oh, they were so distinctive. Aunamee couldn't imagine confusing anyone with Baron. Not with that too-wide neck, that greasy, fiery hair.

"I've about exhausted my credits," he said. He slipped his hands into his pockets, never dropping his gaze once. "So I'm afraid not. I've found myself relying on the kindness of strangers."

[thebiddingbaron]

"Oh, well you know my name and I know you. That hardly makes us strangers does it? I hope that won't prevent you from enjoying my kindness?"

There's something hungry in the Baron's eyes as he looked over Aunamee's body. "Come, let me purchase you a ticket for tonight."

[vissernone]

Eva's standing in line for the orchestra, tapping her foot and tugging out locks of stray hair. She's not especially enthused to hear anything from District 2, as tonight's composition will be, but without the Games to keep track of she's found herself devoid of entertainment. And she hates that, that the Games have started occupying such a space in her day that their absence leaves her restless.

Would that they were only once a year again. She doesn't want to become so accustomed to gore and hell.

The older Capitol citizens tend to give her something of a berth. Back when the stakes were quote-unquote "higher" - back when death was permanent - she ripped someone's face open with her fingernails. Shot her ally in the back with a crossbow bolt. Strangled a thirteen year-old to death with her bare hands. Hers was a memorable Hunger Games, until Enobaria came onto the scene a few decades later and set a new bar for brutality by biting someone's throat out.

But the older citizens still remember. The younger ones don't know who she is, and she is torn between appreciating that, and the impulse to shake them and demand they learn their history, her history. So that her story isn't forgotten, so it never goes out of fashion.

She sees Aunamee approach and feels her fingernails dig into her own palm. She watches the Games, of course, so she saw him for what she thinks he is. Dangerous, unstable, and now when in public, wearing a mask just like her. She waves a little.

"Good show in the Arena. If I had to watch one more sad teenager freeze to death, I was going to blow my brains out from boredom."

[marcato]

Aunamee didn't have an opportunity to watch many games before his own. He doesn't recognize Eva -- not as a mentor, not as a victor, not as a killer -- and so he watches her every movement, trying to gauge the kind of person she is. He locks on her eyes. His eyes burrow. They dig. They claw.

Restless, he thinks. She's restless. And tense.

"Thank you," he says softly. "But I cannot say those were easy decisions to make."

[vissernone]

"Really? They were very easy in my arena," she says, not batting an eye. She knows what he is, she thinks. Unhinged, like her, but without her tempering compassion. Maybe she's wrong; she knows better than anyone that the person inside the arena and the person outside are rarely the same at all.

"Eva Salazar. And I'm afraid I don't keep track of tributes outside my district much, so I don't know your name."

[shambler]

That room his Escorts tried to stick R in made him feel nervous - over lit, the wallpaper colors vibrated off his eyes and it was hard to get a routine going when They whisked him away to try these new clothes or that new powder ("it's not working. Nothing does!" his stylist complained. Loudly. Repeatedly) and it was almost enough to make a corpse scream for some peace and quiet.

R beat a retreat while he could.. For some reason they didn’t like him wandering around, despite the muzzle, and at first he thought they were scared he’d attack people. Fair enough. Zombie, after all. It wasn’t like the thought hadn’t crossed his mind.

Then he overhead the stylist – the one who’d been careful about keeping her blouses out of drooling range since last time – complaining they couldn’t let him wander around looking like that. Something about “think of the impression he’ll make!”. R was convinced she was the one who threw out his old clothes, the ones he still liked no matter how gory and rank they got over the years. Thanks for nothing, lady. Feeling his teeth grinding, R made a mad lurch for privacy into the Training Center, wishing for the Nth time he could pick up the pace. Miraculously he didn’t run into one of his Escorts heading him off at the pass.

R picked a nice dark corner to go sway in. Kinda….lonely without other Dead doing the same thing he was. Standing there staring at the wall wasn’t the same doing it solo. After awhile he tried to shake it up getting a good shamble in, shuffling around and around in a slow circuit. It took him a long moment to register he wasn’t the only one in the center, his head coming up at the sound of even footsteps, too sure to be another zombie’s.

Oh man! Please, please don’t let that be Them.

He’d hide, except R couldn’t move fast enough to duck into a hiding spot. Sometimes being dead blew.

“Hng-hi?” R was so nervous he could barely get the word stuttering out. He braced himself for that hideous shade of blue, peering into the shadows and only seeing an outline of someone else out there.

[marcato]

For all his politeness, for all his good will, Aunamee did little to pretend that he wasn't a killer. He spent hours in the training center with swords, with knives, with spears. The long distance weapons felt cold, impersonal. There was a reason he preferred blades to guns. Garrotes to arrows.

"Hello," he said.

He was dragging a sword behind him, the handle cold and heavy in his hand. The boy he stood in front of smelled like death but wasn't dead. For Aunamee, this brought on more unease than curiosity. This was something that Should Not Be.

[shambler]

Whew, that didn't sound like anyone from his team. R blew out a sigh of relief out of his corpse's lungs, his shoulders slumping. They relaxed forward in their natural hunch. If he could go a few more hours without being told that they couldn't get a shade of teal to flatter his skin tone, then he counted it as an okay day.

"Hiding too?" R realized after the fact, as usual, that he could've thought that one through a little bit better. His eyes went down to the sword in the man's hand, the blade's gleam winking at him. Oh. Yeah.

Logically he knew that thing was dangerous, that it could probably take his head off - right at the neck, maybe - and he'd be stuck forever as a skull in a ditch or something. Depressing thought. In reality, he couldn't access the part of him that would do anything to get out of the way. R's self-preservation was crappy these days. This Living guy gripped that sword like he knew how to use it. R swallowed and tried to be polite.

"R." R groaned out, trying to look sociable. "You have a...name?"

[greymatter]

As a young boy, Grey had been taught none of these things. Learned none of these things. He'd never needed to. There was no transformation for him upon returning to the Capitol. He ripped cameras out of people's hands. He walked right past questioning fans. And his credits sat largely untouched. Sponsors were the only people who interested him at all.

The scientist is walking through the central commons of the training center, on his way to Tesserae when two fans stop him for an autograph. Whatever he says to them has them walking away quickly.

[marcato]

As Grey's fans walk away, Aunamee takes their place. There is no magic. No slight of hand. He simply enters one door while they leave through another. In the past, this might have been choreographed, a magnificent grand entrance, but as it stands, it's a completely random act. A happy accident.

Or not so happy.

Grey (one of his least favorite people) takes Aunamee by surprise (one of his least favorite feelings) as he enters. He pauses just within the commons, his hand still holding the door behind him. Slowly, so slowly, he slides his fingers off the door. It swings shut. With his eyes locked on Grey, he mouths one word, silent yet venomous.

A - las - tor.

[dieinpajamas]

Alpha had watched the video of the Arena, the entire thing, because he was nothing if not thorough. Most of it he watched only once, unless it involved Alpha himself. His death especially, over and over again, searching for the weak spot Ballard had used to get through his defenses, to take control without the benefit of radiation sickness.

He watched that specific moment the most, of course, but Howard's death was a close second. He was bitter, yes, of course, and it was mildly fascinting, but the killer was another point of interest. The man called Aunamee and himself had some similarities (as much as Alpha could be compared to anyone so below himself) and Alpha was intrigued.

So he watched the man, watched Aunamee watch everyone else with a dedication Alpha could admire, and one night in the training center he sidled up the man, casual as anything. "You're kind of a people person, aren't you?"

[marcato]

This one was wild.

He had seen him before, oh yes. He had watched his every word, his every blink, his every breath. In the arena, this man had burned with the sort of instability that Aunamee would once find intriguing, alluring, but in person, he recognized him for what he was. A risk. A danger. In the same way that he could not afford to hire Grey as his scientist (too violent, too disobedient, too unpredictable), Aunamee could not afford to share air with this man. This monster. This psychopath.

-- Except he noted the similarities, too. The way Alpha whispered words of comfort to his victims. The way he wielded the fishing line as a garrote. The sweetness. The smoothness.

(but, I suppose I can be a gentleman, since you have been such a lovely girl)

He straightened his back. He was not frightened. He was vigilant.

"I have a vested interest in humanity," he muttered almost thoughtfully. He rolled a small knife between his hands. Back and forth, back and forth. "As a human myself."