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

[greymatter]

"Does it matter?" His hands slip into his pockets as he nears the other man. "And what of you?" He asks, grinning. "Enjoying the Capitol?" His eyes flash. "...You didn't think your death would be final, did you?" Of course he had. Just as every new tribute did. He could see it in the other man's eyes as the ice around them cracked. The fear of the finality of death.

The past arena had been the first one that they had been granted their individual abilities back. As long as it was a one off event, he figured he'd have the advantage over Aunamee. If not... Well. Things could continue to get interesting. But then, he's never much minded interesting.

[marcato]

"I'm glad yours wasn't," he says. "It's fascinating, seeing the man you became."

His smile gains a hint of veracity, but that darkness never quite goes away. He steps closer, his eyes dragging up and down Grey's body, catching every little blemish, every fold in his clothing, every twitch in his face. He consumes him like a scanner.

"Of course, I didn't think about you very much until now, but --"

He rolls his tongue along the back of his teeth.

"It's satisfying when my intuitions prove correct."

[greymatter]

Grey isn't glad that Aunamee's death wasn't permanent. Not at all. Not even for the opportunity to gloat. There's a subtle flinch as the psychic looks him up and down, before he can remind himself that Aunamee is powerless lacks his psychic abilities. The scientist's expression darkens with each word out of the other man's mouth.

Intuitions. Intuitions. He almost laughs.

"It must be difficult for you here without your 'intuitions'." He sneers. He wants to believe it is. He wants to believe that Aunamee is stumbling around like someone who's been blinded. It's what he deserves.

[marcato]

"I love it."

His voice is smooth and sweet like cream, but his eyes lie. He is tired, more tired than he's ever been, and it's reflected in the purple bruises under his eyes, the thin netting of blood vessels spreading out from his irises like trees.

He steps closer, so close. If he cannot invade his mind, he can invade his space.

"Perhaps a bit of mystery, Doctor, makes life all the more interesting."

[greymatter]

He's unflinching as Aunamee steps forward, nearly unblinking eyes locked on the man's own. A late passerby might wonder who actually stepped forward first. "I'm sure." He replies before seeming to have a thought, tongue running across the front of his teeth. "But you won't be able to fool people here so easily." He grins in mockery. "Especially not after the last arena."

The last arena where you were just as much a monster as he.

[marcato]

The words are enough to make him flinch, his eyes narrowing, his neck jerking.

"I don't need to fool anyone," he says, and the anger rattles under his voice, sharp like a knife. "People will come to recognize my inherent merits."

He drops his voice to a hiss.

"You miserable, broken man."

[greymatter]

A cool smirk settles on Grey's face at the anger but it fades as fast as it came, his expression growing dark as night. He leans even closer to Aunamee, his breath dancing on the other man's face. "Really?" He hisses right back through his teeth. "I'm sure we'll see which of us that description truly fits."

[marcato]

"You," he says.

The answer comes as a sing-song, a smile slipping across his lips. This close to Grey, he imagines that he can feel his heartbeat, that biological thrumming of anger and perfect loathing that he loves so much.

"I'm so glad they record everything," he says. He lowers his voice once more, more of an endeared whisper than a hiss. "Now I can watch you ask for death again and again."

[greymatter]

He actually laughs. "Is that why you think I asked?" That he couldn't handle the pain? The he was weak? He grins. "Quickest way back to the Capitol." To mock you. "Common sense." His eyes dance. "You seem to be forgetting that you were recorded as well." He can watch himself crush your throat, watch you plunge into that ocean a thousand times, Aunamee. Maybe he will.

[marcato]

Another twitch. Another flinch. Aunamee can feel his top teeth grinding against his bottom teeth.

"I do not go down easily, Doctor. You saw that. I will bring you down with me each and every time."

But will he? He doesn't know, not really, but he doesn't spend time dwelling in the dreadful, terrifying uncertainty. He instead basks in confidence. Wild, ultimately blind confidence.

"And it won't be long until there are others at my side."

[greymatter]

The scientist too is nothing if not confident in his own abilities. "We'll see." His eyes are wide with a sudden, manic excitement. Without his powers, Aunamee was as ordinary a man as he. Without his powers, Aunamee was nothing.

Pulling away just slightly, he smirks. "You need others at your side." It isn't quite a question, though he raises an eyebrow. Can't you see? He needs no one.

[marcato]

"Yes," he says, taking the insinuation with a sickening smile. "I need people at my side. I need weapons where you'll never expect them. I need your saviors to turn on you, and I need people to guantee you will die, slowly and painfully, each and every arena."

He steps backward, dusting his hands as though they were soiled by the mere proximity of the other man.

"Even the boy will stand by me."

[greymatter]

"Saviors." He repeats with a laugh. His expression is nothing but amusement. He needs no saviors, no comrades. Relying on others was for the weak.

If Aunamee's promise of repeated, agonized deaths reaches him, it doesn't show. He seems utterly unconcerned by the threats.

His expression shifts to one of bemusement and he hesitates. 'Boy' would imply someone who is not yet an adult. What child could Aunamee find so important? What boy would Aunamee hope to see stand alongside him? And why? Curiosity wins out. "What boy?"

[marcato]

And then Aunamee does something he hasn't done since he first arrived in this horrible, maddening world.

He feigns surprise.

He clamps his mouth shut. He lets his eyes widen. He calls up all those terrible moments in the past where he lost control and he relives them as an actor would. I've said too much, his eyes say, his body says. He tightens his shoulders.

"Never you mind," he says, venomous like a spider. "You'll see soon enough."

[greymatter]

"I'm sure." He replies with a cold smile, finally brushing past Aunamee to continue on his way to his destination. Was it possible that Aunamee had someone here that was important to him? Or was the man simply deceiving him, trying to throw him off?

...What boy?