we're hollow like the bottles that we drink

[schnapp]

Who| beth greene and you.
What| the arena's done and she's back from a traumatizing canon update. drinking? drinking.
Where| the tribute center bar.
When| post-arena
Warnings/Notes| mentions of alcohol, natch. more to be added.



All things considered, she's surprised that the Capitol kept her new scars. It didn't seem like they would have, since she can see the billboards spanning the city that promote perfection in every physical aspect - all possible by plastic surgery, they boast. These scars weren't there the last time she was in the city, but they are now. The healed-up versions of them, remnants of Dawn's temper - being pistol-whipped across the face isn't something that just goes away.

Beth doesn't care. She doesn't know what it says about her, if it supposedly tells the world that she's weak and not worth saving like the ones hidden by her sleeves. It doesn't matter, because she's in the Capitol now, and not Grady Memorial. And it's honestly hard to tell which she'd prefer more at this point.

She'd had her first drink only a few weeks ago. Her dad used to be an alcoholic, and she'd never wanted to disappoint him. But he isn't here, and -- well. She has the blood of three men on her hands now, even though she doesn't want to admit it. Beth makes her way down to the bar with the unease of someone who is not used to being there. Chin tipped up, ready to challenge anyone who tells her that she's too young to be here.

They ask her what she wants and she replies with the first thing that pops into her head - the only other alcoholic drink she really knows, other than moonshine.

Peach schnapps.

Doesn't matter that you're not supposed to drink peach schnapps by itself. That's what she does anyway.

Comments

[dreadinquisitor]

Whenever his own mind had become too much before, there had always been a ready escape. There were always reports to read, advisers to meet with, targets lined up for training... but here, there were just more absently familiar faces.

The men and women he had trusted most - cared about the most - who looked at him with a mix of pity and sadness.

Stumbling upon the tavern was a relief. Even if he'd never spent a great deal of time in the one at Skyhold, he understood the comfort it could bring.

Albeit, if only temporarily.

He dropped heavily into a chair not far from the petit blonde and blinked at the menu the bartender pushed toward him. He recognized exactly nothing on it.

He glanced around, and his eyes landed on the woman, and her glass.

"Pardon," he said gently. "But would you recommend... whatever that is you're drinking?"

[schnapp]

She'd never thought that drinking alone would be her thing, to be honest. Or drinking at all, after years spent at parties holding cans of soda and watching her friends play games instead of taking part in them herself. Beth pretends that her solitude doesn't bother her, clutching her glass almost tentatively, and it takes her a moment to realize that the man beside her was addressing her and not someone else.

"Oh! Well I've...never actually had it before. I'm just tryin' it out. But you could order one and we could find out together?" she offers, knowing that the menu in front of him was terribly confusing. If she hadn't known what schnapps were, she'd probably been stuck ordering anything that sounded vaguely familiar.

[dreadinquisitor]

He considered for a moment, then nodded bemusedly.

"I suppose there isn't much to lose," he replied, turning back to the man behind the counter, pushing the menu across the slick bar top. "The same, please."

The man raised an eyebrow, but said nothing before moving down the bar to fetch the drink. Maxwell watched him a moment, then looked back at the young woman.

"Thank you. I'm afraid this all-- very strange to me yet."

[aintyourdad]

There are only a couple of places that Joel bothers showing his face these days - the gym, when he needs to blow off steam, and the bar, when he needs to drown the pain. He's pretty much fully embraced the 'sad old man' persona at this point, mostly because he doesn't care.

He's never cared what other people think of him - why should he? - only Ellie's opinion ever really mattered, and she's gone. She's gone, so here he is, drinking, and he glances over at Beth, his eyebrows going up at the sight of her.

"That's not for drinkin' by itself," he mutters as the bartender pours out the schnapps.

[schnapp]

Beth had thought his flannel-clad back had looked familiar for a moment when she'd entered the bar. His hair was too short and too grey to be Daryl's, but most of the people in the Capitol don't tend to favor old man flannel anyway. He'd been drinking the last time she saw him, too. Which is actually a little worrying.

He tells her that she's basically drinking it wrong, and she considers it for a moment before she takes a sip. It's very, very sweet. Very...peachy. Almost overwhelmingly so.

"Alright, well. What would you drink it with?"

As long as he's not admonishing her for being here, she doesn't mind admitting that she's got no idea how to navigate any of this.

[fuckitall]

Nick finally steps out of his room after holing up in there since the Arena was over. It was even tougher to get him to leave after he caught the news of what happened after he died himself. Eventually, even he gets tired of being in the room so he wanders down to his second favorite destination after the roof: the bar.

There he catches the sight of Beth and it occurs to him how he's hasn't readied himself to face the people he had seen die in front of him. (How can one even prepare for that? How does Clementine?)

Nick was there, sort of, when he and Luke found Beth in a state that he wish he could just forget. But he can't. They both had been too late to save her and arrived only just in time to see the last bit of her life slip away before making sure it didn't return as something else. To think that all this can happen again in the next Arena. And not just with her, but with any one of them.

Their lives are shitty. They all deserve a drink or ten. He approaches her with butterflies in his no longer eviscerated stomach, telling the waiter that his order before looking at her apologetically.

"Hey, Beth." He doesn't take a seat in case she doesn't want the company. If she wants him to leave, he will. "You drinkin' that straight?"

[schnapp]

Their lives are shitty. Beth remembers so little about her own death. She knows Luke was there, she remembers him reaching out to take her hand. Nick might have been there, but at the time she had been too far gone to really tell. The only person that stood out to her was Nill, and it was her soft voice in her mind that had made everything a little more bearable.

She watched what happened on the televisions. They made her watch as Nick and Luke and Daryl and Rick died, and it's yet another reason why they deserve a drink ( or six ). He doesn't need to sit down, because she's instantly slipping off of her stool at the sight of him. Wrapping her arms around him and squeezing tight.

It doesn't matter that she's only known him for a few short weeks. They come from the same hellish world. He made a promise. And despite everything, she's still relieved to see anyone who is remotely familiar.

Or maybe she just has a lot of emotions to let out. There's that, too.

"Hey, Nick," she tells him quietly, sparing a glance at her untouched glass. "I was gonna. Why, is it bad?"

[infinitemayonnaise]

Nitou's not super-experienced with alcohol. Really, with him, it doesn't take a whole lot until he's sleeping like a little baby. But that's really kind of what he wants, because it's really freaking hard to sleep after a chestburster pops out of you while you've already been dealing with having a hungry magical creature living inside of you for quite some time anyway. He doesn't think there's too much shame in going for a drink to get him to sleep tonight. Just once couldn't hurt.

So now he's sitting there at that bar, looking at whatever it is they've given him in a too-small glass. Nitou's scrutinizing it carefully, like it's missing something. After a bit of deliberation, he carefully takes a bottle out of his jacket and squirts something inside. Seeing as how the bottle in question is a bottle of mayonnaise, this looks understandably weird.

He looks over at the girl nearby ordering that peach schnapps. "That stuff any good?" Because, clearly, this dude's got some serious taste, what with the way he's just squirted mayonnaise into that glass.

[schnapp]

Well.

She's seen some weird things in her lifetime. The dead rising from their graves being one of them. She tries to keep her disbelief to a minimum because of that. But he just squeezed mayonnaise into a glass like he was about to drink it, and she can't help but lean over to see if that's really what it is.

Suddenly, her awkward choices don't seem so strange.

"I think so? It smells good. Are you really gonna drink that?" Beth is wincing. She can't help it.

after his thread with jason

[tevintage]

He couldn't face his friends. It wasn't that he didn't want to see them - quite the opposite - but he was so very upset that he was quite sure it would register openly on his face, and he didn't want them to see that. Didn't want to worry him. Even if Jason's voice kept echoing in his mind.

He sits down next to Beth, orders a brandy, and stares into it, but after a few moments he can hear the whispers of the other bar patrons. What, are they friends? Allies? I never really thought they'd be the type to hang out together. Think we could ask for a picture?

He sighed, deeply, and offered her a rueful smile.

"It seems we share some notoriety," He said mildly. "I suppose you must also be a Tribute?"

[schnapp]

She hates the constant whispering that tends to follow her wherever she goes. For reasons that Beth doesn't understand, because she doesn't consider herself an interesting person to follow. In the Capitol, away from the brutality of the arenas and her own world, she tries to feel as normal as she possibly can. She sings, sometimes. It still matters.

But she's also gotten better at ignoring whatever it is they have to say. Downing her drink in short order, and ignoring the fact that it's so overpoweringly sweet.

Okay, so maybe not peach schnapps for the next round. Something else.

"Oh, them? You get used to it. You'd think they'd run out of stuff to talk about eventually," Beth offers him a small smile. She tries to be soft with her fellow tributes. No mater what happens in the arenas, they're not her enemies.

[a_minute_younger]

It apparently isn't too uncommon for the bars here to give out drinks to suspiciously under-aged individuals, as Gary hasn't run into any obstructions when he passes through and the notion strikes him. Granted, at eighteen years old he probably hits the legal limit here, but as a Tribute he thinks it wouldn't matter either way. It helps to have a certain level of confidence when coming into the exchange--something that Gary's always had, and he flaunts well on this particular visit, striding casually up to the bar and gracefully slinging himself onto one of the stools. He makes a point of sitting close to Beth; the promise of a new drinking companion is what's gotten him to stop, so he ought to make the effort to get to know her.

Besides, now that he's not restricted to the cheap booze his friends could sneak into their basement for parties, Gary's actually done some research for once and compiled a list of interesting-sounding beverages that he wants to try. He's had it wrapped around his credit card ever since he got back from the Arena, several weeks ago. He takes a peek at it now on his way to greet Beth.

"Hard liquor kind of night?" Gary flashes Beth a wide, encouraging smile, as he motions for the bartender to wait while he glances at the slip of paper pulled from his pocket. Just a matter of deciding which one...

[schnapp]

The thought of drinking alone is really, really sad. She doesn't really want to know what it says about her state right now, so when someone sidles up next to her with a wide smile and an easy demeanour, there's a part of her that feels almost relieved. Lately, she's been feeling herself slipping down into cynicism and anger, and she knows how hard it is to come back from that.

But Beth is a girl made of easy smiles, no matter what she happens to be feeling at the moment. "Sort of? I'm not sure if this is hard liquor or not. I've never tried it before," she shrugs, though she figures that it can't be stronger than moonshine.

"What about you?"

TW: teenage drinking

[ruffntumblenut]

Drinking in the Viking culture is common, and while they limit the intake of their children once you are a teenager you're considered old enough and allowed to partake as you like.

This of course leads to a few over indulgences but eventually every viking learns their limit.

Not that the bartender cared one way or the other in this bar, and that was why Ruffnut was here. She had discovered much to her shock that some places in the Capitol refused to let her drink alcohol. Claimed she was too young! And when she pointed out she was old enough to fight and die in the arena they simply laughed in her face which usually put her in a smashing sort of mood which then always followed with being escorted home by the peacekeepers.

This bar however was much more reasonable possibly because she lived here and they were no stranger to how many younger tributes needed something to strengthen them to the horrors of their reality.

When she spotted Beth she grinned a crooked grin and sauntered over steeling a seat next to her.

"Welcome back...cool scars."

[schnapp]

Beth's probably under the limit - well, at least she's under the American age limit. But it's not like there's a government or a police force any more to card her, no matter how much she wishes there was. Those would be the kinds of problems she'd kill to be able to care about. Not that she'd be drinking if the world was the way it was supposed to be. Her dad would still be alive, and it wouldn't even be a thought in her mind.

She's doing it now, though. Because what else is there to do? And she figures, well. After being mercilessly slaughtered in the arena, it's probably a good occasion for it. The drink burns on its way down. In a comforting way.

Ruffnut slides in next to her and tells her that her scars are cool, and for a moment Beth doesn't know how to react. She doesn't, except to absentmindedly touch the one across her cheek. Cool isn't the word she'd use for them, especially not when they were inflicted on her by Dawn.

"Oh...thanks," she tells her, finally. Quieter than she used to be. But maybe that's just the consequence of living in the world that they do.

[burningdaylight]

It had been silly to hope he could surround himself with unfamiliar company – the company of people who wouldn’t care to look searchingly into his face with sorry eyes and ask him if he were okay until the tightness in his chest crushed him -- and disappear in it for just a little while. Alcohol and misery always seem to go hand in hand and he realizes he should have expected to share the bar with Nick or Jane at the very least. That Beth is there, nursing a glass of something-or-other, takes him by surprise in the way no one else could have – barring Clem. And he doesn't suppose Beth had come all this way to drink something she could get her hands on anywhere else.

It occurs to him that he could leave before he’s noticed. Take a walk, maybe. Jog. There’s just so much restlessness in him to burn and he misses the good sort of tired soreness that came of putting himself to good use around the farm, mowing this and hoisting that and working up a sheen of sweat. Misses the way he could lose himself in the peaceful monotony of work and sleep more deeply at the end of the day than he ever could otherwise.

Luke just gathers a slow, steadying breath around the knot in his chest and comes up beside her instead, looking from her glass to her. "Hey, kid." He tries, gently.

[schnapp]

The moment she sees him, Beth realizes that Luke's face was the very last thing she saw before she died. Luke's face in her swimming vision, Nill's gentle voice in the back of her mind. Both holding the agony at bay. There's no good way to die, but Beth had known in that moment that he'd keep his promise, and that had been a comfort to her. It had been enough to make her finally let go and stop clutching desperately to the agony that threatened to rip her mind apart.

He calls her kid and she's slipping off of her stool in an instant, almost knocking it over because she rushes over to him. Throwing her arms around him without any hesitation. Choking back the onslaught of tears that threaten to spill over, and they would if not for Beth's stubborn determination to hold them back. She doesn't cry any more. She just doesn't.

But her throat hurts and she pulls back just for a moment, just enough for her to press a chaste kiss against his cheek. It says thank you, without saying anything. She doesn't feel much like the same girl he sang folk songs on the rooftop with. She feels colder, more scarred. There's blood on her hands.

Beth is a cracked candle, broken around the edges. Still capable of giving heat and light.

[reassures]

When Nill came back and didn't really see Beth around anywhere, she'd thought the worst, but at the time that took a backseat to dealing with her own death, and watching the fallout of it on the TV while Karkat struggled to stay alive, even as he kept entirely to himself. It was a distraction. Most things were.

The past few weeks have found Nill at the bar more often than not, because the screens were there, and it was a decent enough place to drink and keep an eye on things and not need to worry about too many people bothering her. The bartender knows her order, and starts getting it ready when she comes into view.

Nill doesn't go for her usual seat though, because she recognizes that person sitting at the bar, and her eyes go a little wide. Before she realizes it she's at the bar, half in the seat beside Beth, one hand reaching out towards her, hovering over her shoulder, as if worried if she actually tried to touch her she might not be there a moment later.

She wasn't gone?

[schnapp]

The last thing she remembers is Nill's voice in her mind, gentle and soothing. Nill, taking the pain away. She had tried knocking on her door earlier, but the other girl wasn't home. So when Beth turns to see her reaching out to her, she doesn't hesitate to wrap her arms around her, squeezing her tight. Trying to be mindful of the wings, at least. She buries her face in Nill's shoulder.

We don't get to be upset.

"Thank you," Beth whispers, her voice muffled and strained. "Thank you so much."

To be honest, she doesn't know if she could have done it without Nill.

Reunion time at the tribute centre!

[rictator]

When he heard the knock at the door, Rick had been planning to ignore it.

With everything that had happened to him and his family back home, he so rarely took the time to cope with the fallout. He pushed through it, pushing away the hurt and the trauma before it could ever truly sink in, keeping it at bay until they were safe enough that he could afford to face it. If Lori's death had proven nothing else, it was how very wrong he'd been in that respect - and yet, he continued to operate under the same mentality. Were Rick to truly mourn his losses, he wouldn't be able to effectively protect the others in their own times of grief; so long as he was able, he'd always choose to shelve his own needs in favour of theirs.

Perhaps it was that unspoken trepidation that spurred him into moving. If he stopped too long, it felt like it all might finally catch up to him. In the quiet, he'd never be able to outrun all the things he'd fought so hard to keep buried.

At least the Capitol had provided him with clothing more familiar and comfortable than the bizarre space suit he'd been shoved into upon arrival. The plaid button-up and jeans were small consolation for the rest of it, but he looked more himself when he finally answered the door.

Beth.

Alive.

It made sense. He remembered - quite vividly - what it had been like to die, and here he was. Yet, he could only stare at her for an uncomfortably long moment, half-afraid that she was just another ghost. Like Lori. Like Shane. Even when they'd reunited, they hadn't found the younger Greene sister, lost to an unknown party when she'd been separated from Daryl. Rick hadn't want to accept the possibility that that their reunion might never take place, but with nowhere to start and not a lead in sight, it had begun to look like a grim reality.

He didn't bother resisting the urge to reach out, the grip on her shoulder both reassuring and grounding as he moved to tug her closer, wrapping her into a one-armed hug.

"... You're here," he said once he'd found his words again, his voice rough with barely contained emotion. "You're alright."

I never thought we'd see you again.

[schnapp]

They forced her to watch him die, and there is a part of her that wants to make them pay for it. A new part of her that's surfaced more often than she would have liked since entering Grady Memorial. Beth still remembers the cold metal of the scissors in her hands, with every intention of killing Edwards for what he'd done. She is angry, these days. Angrier and colder and there's a part of her that's scared of that.

She's terrified of becoming Dawn. Of becoming that person that justifies the means to reach an end that might not ever be true. Holding on to delusion for as long as they can. The truth is that no one is coming to help them. No one ever is. Daryl told her he'd looked for her, but she knows she has to get out on her own.

These are lessons that Beth has paid a steep price for. But she doesn't forget. She clings to the belief that she is better than that, better than Dawn, because she has to be. Because her father would have wanted her to be.

But they made her watch him die, and she hadn't looked away even though she had wanted to. Hadn't cried, despite the tightness in her throat because it was a party and everyone was watching for their reactions. Looking to gain satisfaction from them. She is breathless as she bolts her way up to his door, knocking at a rapid, panicked staccato.

And when he pulls her in, she goes easily. Folds in under his arm, pressing the side of her face against his shoulder. Squeezing hard enough to tell him she missed him.

"I'm alright," she tells him, and smiles because it is in Beth's nature to smile for everyone else's benefit. But her face is harder now and it is scarred, and her smile exudes less brightness than it used to. "And so are you. I'm really glad."

[weaintashes]

Upon finding himself very much not-dead after the arena for reasons beyond his comprehension, it's not a stretch to assume he probably isn't the only one, and his singular purpose becomes locating Beth and Rick. His mind is put at ease almost immediately where Rick is concerned because he'd found Daryl first, having been the one who'd woken Daryl from his post-arena sleep. Or whatever it had been; it had felt closer to a coma than natural sleep.

That leaves Beth. He has to see with his own eyes that she's okay, or as okay as any of them can be...

Her district's floor of suites is where he looks first, and when she doesn't answer her door, he turns his mind to thinking of where else she's likely to go. He's entertaining thoughts of checking out places in the Capitol as he's passing through the central commons, and that's when his eyes are drawn by the unmistakable small frame, blonde hair, uneasy posture — she's sitting at the bar, of all places. By herself, from the looks of it.

The weight of just how unprepared he is to see her again falls on him then, and his throat has tightened to the point that speaking is difficult as he comes to stand beside her, wordlessly looking at her with a stricken expression, relief warring with concern on his face. Without thinking he's reaching for her, the gesture full of uncertainty, his hands never quite touching her.

[schnapp]

She still remembers how scared he'd looked on the screen, with the electronic voice slowly counting down the seconds to certain death. In some ways, she feels like Daryl sometimes gives off this aura of invincibility. He moves wherever he wants, he kills walkers like it's second nature to him. But more importantly, it's the strength that offsets something else. A vulnerability, or something. It makes Beth want to roll her eyes a little bit, phrasing it like that in her mind like this is some kind of cheesy movie, but it's true.

Daryl is a person who will lash out when he's hurting, like a cornered animal.
He's also a good person, underneath all that scar tissue. And it makes Beth happy to recognize that, even though he acts like it's some big secret.

Watching him die alongside Rick is one of those images Beth wishes she could forget, but there are a lot of memories like that. The sound of Gorman's voice in her ear, the sight of Joan's face as they had amputated her arm. She's not the same girl as she was when she entered that arena, but her reaction to his presence is exactly the same as it would have been before.

Namely, sliding off her stool and reaching back for him in return, squeezing him tight to make up for his tentativeness in turn.

"Hey," she tells him, quietly. She doesn't really know what else to say.

[oopsright]

She hasn't really bumped into anyone else yet who had hair as fair as Beth's. There had been Mindy but it was rare that Tess bumped into the girl outside of an arena. One person Tess did bump into outside of the arena was Beth, the young girl she could make out sitting at the counter of the bar. That was where Tess was heading anyway, sliding on up onto the stool and plopping her arms down on the bar top.

"Whiskey," she orders when the bartender greets her. "Make it a double." And then Tess turns to the young girl, eying her drink of choice. "I could smell that coming into the place. Your poison of choice?"

[schnapp]

She doesn't really want to admit that it's one of the only drinks she knows, to be honest. Not to Tess, who seems older and way more world-weary. Beth takes in the way she strides into the place like she owns it, and it makes her sit up a little straighter.

"Sort of. I've never tried it before. Is it good?" she takes a sip, and makes a face. "Never mind."