(no subject)

[dieinpajamas]

Who| Alpha and OPEN
What| Alpha's pissy and drinking.
Where| A bar, quiet and focused on drinking.
When| Post Arena, Pre-Lockdown
Warnings/Notes| Standard Alpha warnings, in particular homicidal thoughts, otherwise none so far.

There was a part of Alpha, a few parts actually, that were starting to suspect that the Games were all some big plot to humiliate him for all to see. It would explain a lot. He pondered this possibility darkly, along with the problem of Ballard, not to mention the problem of Howard.

And, as always, the ever-present issue of not being where he needed to be. These problems and more, since multi-tasking was a necessary skill of Alpha's, he considered while he sat at the bar in the first dive he could find where nobody would bother him for autograph's or what have you, nursing a tumbler and glaring moodily at the rows of bottles on the wall.

Comments

[kind_of_a_nerd]

Atticus had set out to get a feel for the city. He realized he probably shouldn't have gone on his own, but he didn't want to ask anybody to hold his hand either, so he was out and wandering.

He did get stopped once or twice for autographs, and it had been kind of a fun, novel experience the first few times. Right up until some kid, couldn't have been older than twelve, said, "The way you just ripped its throat out!"

The novelty wore off very soon after that.

So he wandered further and further from the brighter, more populated areas of the city and eventually found himself in a dive bar. He made his way up to the bar and said to the guy behind the counter, "I don't suppose you've got, like, tequila?"

Have a tipsy mentor.

[vissernone]

Eva generally prefers to drink alone, or at least, as alone as she ever feels when she's certain she's always being watched and monitored, but tonight she's been afflicted with a sort of sleeplessness that her plentiful stores of wine just won't hit. She needs something harder, and as such she's at a bar ordering something very similar to absinthe.

It fills her up with that familiar warm humming, the kind that if she just closes her eyes, she can feel like a giant puppet hand inside her, all hot fingers pulling her muscles and veins and palpating her heart. How does she ever get through the day without it? Animating her dry body every morning is such a task, burdened as she is with jadedness, with the lie she lives.

And no one around here seems to recognize her as the District 9 mentor. She's in a nightgown, but she has shoes on, and she didn't take her hair from the intricate clips before she tried and gave up on sleep, nor did she wash off her severe and perfect makeup. The nightgown is expensive and ornate enough that she can pass it off as a fashion only a few seasons out of trend.

"Howdy, stranger." She takes a seat next to Alpha, a little too drunk to recognize his face from the televised Games. She rests her chin on her fist and nurses her one-too-many of whatever-this-is. "You look familiar."

[dieinpajamas]

Alpha's all set to ignore the rest of the bar and preferably the world for the rest of the night, but the voice sounded familiar enough that he glanced over on reflex. It was dim in the room so it takes a second for recognition to register. He smirked, remembering his last encounter with that particular face, and he's all set to let the kid wander off with his drink before something else about the face registered.

He frowned and darted out a hand to grab the kid--Blaine, that was it--by the chin. The skin is smooth and clear--the damn Capitol has erased his gifts.

[dieinpajamas]

"Do I?" says Alpha sourly, sparing the woman little more than a glance. Mentor, not his District, not his problem. High-profile enough that people would notice if he was missing, so not a suitable target to expound his frustrations on (not that he could anyway with the damn cameras, but a man can dream). "Shocking."

[vissernone]

"Oh, be nice to me," Eva says, rolling her eyes. "I can't bother to keep all you people straight. Only the winners."

Of which Alpha is not, and Eva is.

Neener neener.

[dieinpajamas]

On the other hand, would anyone be that upset if she was found mysteriously carved to death in a dumpster?

Alpha takes a second to drain his glass then turns to Eva. He smiles at her, all teeth and none of his usual charm. "Oh, well, I'm sure it was different back when your worst opponents were teenagers with attitude. Out of curiosity, how many twelve year olds did you murder to win your Game?"

[vissernone]

Probably not.

She takes a sip of her drink and drums her fingernails against her lower lip. Acrylic polish, a design of golden flowers on deep red (it keeps her from chewing them off). She feels as if there's a comeback, something about this man and teenagers, but she can't remember if that was this or the other guy who got killed by a teenager. She's much too drunk to arrive at a conclusion herself without done jogging, so she just says "the teenagers and young people seem to be doing quite well these days. Plenty of kills under their belts."

Much too drunk to bother with the inconvenience of finding a better drinking buddy.

But she isn't too drunk to maintain her bravado, get air of callous indifference. "Two. Probably. I didn't exactly ask them for ID out in the field."

[kind_of_a_nerd]

Smooth and clear, yes, but not quite like Blaine's. Mostly because it was marred by stubble, as Atticus' usually was. Other things which, on closer examination, might indicate this was not the boy he maimed, included his hair being longer and generally more crazily curly than the other boys, his eyes being a strange sort of amber rather than hazel, and the way he yanked himself out of Alpha's grip.

"Hey! Whoa! Stand down, buddy."

[dieinpajamas]

There are differences, Alpha noticed now, not that he got a terribly close look at Blaine thanks to the weather gear and Wyatt's interference. And he appeared older, which discounted the identical twin theory.

Interesting. "Your face," he started, then stopped, forcing a slur and wavering slightly. The balance was important, just drunk enough that the inappropriate touching was forgivable, not so drunk that conversation seemed pointless. "Your face," he repeated eventually. "Seen it before. But it looked different."

[dieinpajamas]

Alpha grits his teeth, starts seriously considering how much violence he can utilize before someone notices. Probably none, considering he's a Tribute and she's a Mentor, both under even more strict supervision than the rest of the population. Instead he gestures for another drink.

"Oh, but surely you watched the video afterwards," he says, stubbornly ignoring the jab about teenagers turned back on him. "Your greatest hits. Bet it'd look great spliced into a music video."

[vissernone]

Eva seems completely oblivious to how annoying she is.

"Oh, they spliced it into plenty. Advertisements, too. I was the first girl winner in a few years. They used my footage from the Cornucopia to sell tampons." She takes another drink and strokes the base of her throat to stifle a hiccup.

[dieinpajamas]

Alpha chokes on his drink a little, in a rare instance of absolute surprise. "There's a mental image that'll stay with you," he coughed out. "Nothing like girl power."

[kind_of_a_nerd]

Atticus wasn't completely pacified, but he was willing to let it slide, at least.

"Oh, yeah. There's...a kid here. Blaine? He looks a lot like me."

Pretty close to identical, in fact. At least close enough that it really unnerved Atticus when he wasn't doped up on chocolates.

[vissernone]

"'For even the bloodiest situations'. I kid you not." She chuckles and drums her fingers against her glass. "They could you to sell antidepressants, maybe. You look like you're here to mope."

[greymatter]

Alpha wasn't the only one looking for a peaceful place to drink sans noisy fans and paparazzi. He doesn't notice the man right away, nearly sitting somewhere else entirely before he spots him. Grey recognizes him immediately as that odd man he'd killed two arenas ago. The one who spoke to himself as if he were speaking to multiple people.

He moves to sit closer to Alpha, oblivious to the other man's foul mood as he grins. "Hello!"

[itsananimalthing]

Bars were Riddick's bread and butter, especially these days. He sometimes got drinks for free, he could browse on the snacks that were laid out to lure in drinkers, and he could listen to people and keep an eye on other people.

Alpha was one of those people he wouldn't mind keeping an eye on, given the guy looked almost as well-built as he did and had that always-watching look to him. It happened to be coincidence that he wound up in that same bar that same evening, though, even if it was a happy coincidence.

Well. Not happy. You know what he meant.

He ambled up to the bar to take a seat two down from Alpha and held up a hand for one drink. "Surprise me," he added to the bartender when she looked at him with brows raised. "You know I'm good for it."

And she did, so she set about mixing.

[dieinpajamas]

"Generous with your blood money," Alpha couldn't help but remark, recognizing the man as a fellow Tribute. Richard Riddick, that was the name. Someone of mild interest, one of the few with previous combat experience for one, but not much else sparked Alpha's curiosity. But sulking got boring after a while.

[dieinpajamas]

Alpha knows that voice extremely well. Most of that time in the Arena is blurred by illness, but the video is burned into his mind at this point. His fingers twitch and only the eternal surveillance keeps Alpha from breaking the glass in his hand, using the largest shard to cut into Grey's skin, his face, his wrists, his--

Alpha very carefully sets the glass down. Best save that for the Arena. Or the first camera-free space he can find. He grins back at the man, or at least, bares his teeth, and says nothing. Instead he just gestures for another drink.

[dieinpajamas]

"I would be absolutely thrilled to be a spokesmodel for anti-psychotic drugs," says Alpha speculatively, and entirely sincerely. It'd pass the time, for one. "It's a terrible, disgusting bar. Moping and cruising are what it's here for."

[dieinpajamas]

"Blaine! That's it. I had a little run in with him, left him with," Alpha waved a hand vaguely at Atticus' face. "A gift. Thought the Capitol had taken it away." Like Adelle and Victor, though then Alpha had been too terribly amused at the implications there to be too upset about it.

[vissernone]

"Shame no one told me. I'm not here to mope or cruise, I'm here to get drunk." And from the way she hiccups, mission-freaking-accomplished.

[itsananimalthing]

"Hey, it ain't my money." Riddick shrugged, waiting for his drink. "Ain't made me pay it back yet." He imagined they probably would try eventually, but until then, he was happy to use it to some moderate amount.

And it technically wasn't blood money, since he hadn't killed a soul yet. Alpha might know that-- might not.

[greymatter]

Grey himself requests a glass of whiskey, glancing sidelong at Alpha. "I couldn't help but notice a certain problem you seemed to be having the arena before last." He says, taking a sip of his drink. He never was the most tactful man.

[dieinpajamas]

"Yet," said Alpha flippantly, as though the inevitable time when the Capitol came to collect on it's debts was of no concern. He planned to be long gone by that time, so it certainly wasn't his.

Alpha knew everyone's kills, though at the moment it was a little hard to keep track. Technically he counted everything the Capitol gave them as 'blood money' or whatever the term was for material gains of that sort, but not in a way that implied he was bothered by it. Money was money, Alpha only used it when he didn't feel like just taking anyway.

[dieinpajamas]

"That's right," says Alpha with a nod. "The other thing, that one." He waves a hand a little unsteadily. He's playing up his buzz, almost instinctualy, especially since he doubts this woman would notice or remember if he recited the Declaration of Independence while standing on one leg. But it's a comforting obfuscation.

"Getting drunk. I can drink to that. Garcon!" he shouts, snapping his fingers until the bartender realizes Alpha's talking to her. "Another for myself and the lady," he says, though his glass is still half full