If you ever get to the place where the sun is shining everyday

[cigne]

Who| Swann and maybe you???
What| Gotta shape up these Tributes. And maybe have a drink.
Where| D8 Suites and also the bar in the lobby
When| TODAY

a. District 8 Suites
Swann enters the Suite with her heels clicking on the floor, peering around for any sign of life in here. She carries in her shopping bags, each labeled with the name of her Tributes. The bags overwhelm her tiny frame, the sheer amount of them and their size. Even her sky-high stilettos can't balance it all out.

She approaches the sitting room and carefully arranges the bags on the coffee table, placing them just so, very intent on the appearance. She wants everything to look just right when the Tributes come in, wants to see their eyes light up at how pretty the bags are, with their pristine edges and rich black shine and ribbons on the handles.

They have to show up first, though.

b. Lobby bar

All she needed was a single lemon drop martini, and she has it. Sitting on the high barstool, Swann looks out over the lobby, watching people come and go, watching the crowds ebb and flow as the Tributes enter and leave the building. It's interesting enough, made nicer by the drink, and the screens replay all the best scenes from the past Arena.

She occasionally fiddles with her communicators, checking emails and messages and the tabloids, making sure everything's in order while she dares to lounge for just a few moments.

Comments

[cigne]

"Uh-huh." She nods cheerfully. "Like if there's anything you want to know, or anything I can do for you? That kind of stuff."

[samson]

Brock has a lot of questions, actually, but he is smart enough to realize she probably can't answer them. Or won't.

"Okay," he says, screwing his eyes up in thought. "Trey said something about seeming vulnerable to appeal more. You got any suggestions? 'cause I don't have a clue where to go with that."

[cigne]

"Oh, that's easy!"

She almost sighs with relief, that he doesn't want to push about the bigger issues, the things that are out of her hands.

"You just want something a little personal, preferably about love or some kind of loss in your past? You talk about it some point in an interview, organically, and it makes you vulnerable, emotionally, I guess. So just figure out something along those lines that you wouldn't mind sharing."

[samson]

Wouldn't mind sharing is the operative phrase, and Brock slowly runs his hand down his cheek, giving her a bit of a skeptical look.

"Okay... what if I just made something up?"

[cigne]

"Well..."

The word comes out with a bit of a grimace, only because Swann knows the difficulties that the lies can lead to.

"You can, but you need to remember how bad it will look if you're found out. If you get even one detail of your story wrong, you'll be revealed, and then people are a lot less likely to support you. So it's up to you."

[samson]

That is a good point. Frowning, Brock drops his hands to his lap and looks down, considering his options. He's not talking about Molotov; that's absolutely out of the question. Bringing the boys into it also seems like a bad idea -- he could talk about (one of) their (many) deaths, but he knows he'll slip up at some point, and it's going to look like a straight-up lie. So that's out, too.

"I don't think I have a lot of real, uh... material. To go off," he says, screwing his eyes up and thinking. But... oh. Maybe there is a way... "I could talk about Adrienne."

[cigne]

Swann suddenly looks even more fascinated than she's managed to look throughout the entirety of this conversation, which is really sort of impressive, in a sad way.

She's a Capitolite, which means she's a sucker for these stories.

"Who's Adrienne?"

[samson]

He was sort of talking to himself, but, well, now's as good a time as any to see if this would even work. Or if he could pull it off, for that matter. He doesn't think Swann is the brightest crayon in the box, but then again, he has pretty low opinions of Capitolites in general. As long as there aren't any glaring errors in the story, they're likely to eat it all up.

"Adrienne is, well," Brock starts, looking over at Swann again, "I don't know exactly what she is; what to call it. I took care of her, and she... well, I guess she carried me a lot. Helped me through a lot of situations. We were together for about twenty years, but it didn't end too good."

[cigne]

She might not be a genius, but Swann isn't exactly stupid, either -- she listens to the story, invested at first, but then squints.

"If you were with her for that long, why haven't you ever mentioned her before? It's kind of hard to hide that kind of relationship from tabloids," she says, digging again through her notes. "What does she look like?"

[samson]

"It wasn't really a relationship," he says, frowning at what she's doing. What the hell, does she have files on him? He is going to steal those and burn them, that's not very nice. But he appreciates even less that she's trying to poke holes in his shit, so he gets a little aggressive about it, pointing at her.

"And even if it was, you think I'm dumb enough to run my mouth about my 'feelings' without having a plan? I don't trust you people."

[cigne]

Swann's face prickles red with fear and unhappiness and an inexplicable sense of shame, even though she's pretty sure she's didn't do anything wrong. This is her job.

"Um." She has blink away the tears welling in her eyes, looking down at her notepad and shaking her head a little. "Um, okay, well, I think we're done for now, so... so just..."

She waves her hand vaguely and sniffles involuntarily.

[samson]

Wow, it's like dealing with Dean.

Brock is maybe a bit of an asshole, but not so much that he doesn't feel bad about making a chick cry, holy fuck. His hand is frozen in the air, still pointing at her, but his face does a thing that is probably very similar to the look somebody gets when they realize they just ran over a squirrel.

"Uh. Uhhh, no... don't... do that..."

[cigne]

Excuse you, Swann is nothing like Dean! She is actually a girl, and therefore allowed to have weird fits of emotions. It's just the rules, okay? But she won't beat up idiots while snot dribbles out of her nose, so.

She waves her hands at him, still looking down, and dabs at the corners of her eyes with the side of her finger. "It's fine, you can go now. I'm okay."

[samson]

No, Swann is about the Deaniest person Brock has ever met outside Dean. He takes note of this and will now apply it going forward with how to interact with her. On the other hand, he's also aware that this could just be some kind of ploy to get him to feel bad for her and trust her more -- a humanizing, sympathetic element. Brock has been a spy for long enough that he's always second-guessing everything, and though it's sometimes exhausting, it's kept him alive this long, anyway.

"No, hey," he says, turning to face her fully now, hands perched on his knees. "If we're gonna be... working together... then we should, uh. I mean... let's start over. Hang on."

[cigne]

She's not a Dean! Swann is just very in touch with her emotions, and also easily upset by people being harsh with her.

"What?" she asks, looking at him, because she doesn't know what he means when he says hang on. What could she be hanging on for?

[samson]

She is a Dean, deal with it. Deanie Swann, that's her new name and title.

Also, he meant hang on as in hang on, don't get upset! Put a pin in those tears, lady. Brock takes a deep breath and tries to speak slowly -- slower than usual, anyway, which is saying something. Not that he thinks he needs to use small words with Swann; he thinks she's a little vapid, but not like a total moron. He just wants to make sure he says this right. Words are not his forte.

"I need you on my side. If I tell you what I'm trying to do, you need to work with me on it. You get me?"

[cigne]

Her brow furrows and she frowns deeply, feeling only marginally offended by how he speaks so slowly.

"I don't know what you mean, but it's my job to make sure no one else can find a flaw in you." She's not looking at him anymore, like maybe she can't bear to face him unless she's agreeing with what he wants. "Everything has to be bulletproof, trust me."

[samson]

"I mean," he says, craning his neck a little so he can force himself into her field of vision, "you need to promise me you'll help me make this work. And not let something slip."

She's a civilian, as far as he's concerned. Brock knows his own limitations with lying, which are very few because he's good at it, with a few subjects in exception. But he doesn't know if Swann is going to freeze up if somebody asks her about his story. He doesn't know if they have the Escorts confirm or deny anything.

"Adrienne is my car."

[cigne]

There's a moment where Swann doesn't say anything, because she's just trying to process what he said, how that works with his story, what this even means.

"You're... in love with your car?" she squeaks, looking at him again only from shock. "Please... maybe we can say she's a lady? I just don't... I mean, the Capitol is pretty laissez-faire, but that's... I think we can pretend Adrienne is a woman again, let's go back to that!"

[samson]

"What -- no," he says immediately, looking disturbed that she's even thinking that. "It's just a car. I was trying to show you... how I want to play it."

He was actually trying to trick her at first, and got pissy when she wasn't buying it. But then she started all crying, so...

[cigne]

Well, she only thinks that because he described a romantic relationship, and then said that it was with his car! So why would she think anything else?

"I don't really understand," she says, looking perplexed and still maybe a little teary.

[samson]

Look, that could have been a very close platonic friendship, too. You don't know!

Brock scrubs at his cheek a little. "I mean, I want them to think it's a woman. I don't... look," he tries again, adjusting his seating. He's already turned to face her so he can't really give her any more attention than he already is. "If I tell them something real, there's a good chance they're going to actually use it in there. You get what I'm saying? I don't want that to happen. I can't let them use people I care about to get at me."

[cigne]

"How can they use things from another world against you in the Arena?" she asks, well aware of how they could, but not the real mechanics. Jabberjays were the best example, but they'd have to bring that person to Panem, and wouldn't the worst already be done at that point anyway?

"I'm not asking you to tell your deepest, darkest, secrets. Tell them about your pet fish that you loved who died."

[samson]

"They could reach into my time -- world -- whatever, and bring them here," he says, swinging his arm to the side in a vague gesture, pointing at the very idea of transdimensional horseshit. People have said they're able to look into the past of the Tributes somehow which makes absolutely no sense to Brock as far as he understands the laws of physics, but if they can do that, then what's to stop them from taking it a step further?

"That's why I'm talking about my car."

[cigne]

"Then why don't you just talk about your car?" she says, brow knitting insistently. "If you make it sound like a woman, then it's only a matter of time before someone manages to blow the story open, and then you're just a big guy that everyone thinks is having a relationship with his car!"

The fact that Swann herself immediately believed this should signal to Brock how the Capitol at large will interpret it.

"It needs to be honest, I'm telling you."