thecapitol | (no subject)

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(no subject)

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.

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"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.

"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

Eva arches her brow and smiles. It's a reptilian expression, lips closed, teeth digging into gum just below the surface. "Well, your tune certainly changed fast."

She may be trashed but she's not entirely stupid right now. But she is stupid enough to keep drinking. "So remind me what it's like to kill, will you?"

"I'm very changeable," Alpha says, baring his teeth at her in a faux-grin once more. And he fully intended to stick her with the bill. He couldn't carve her up in the alley behind the bar, but he could at least be a minor annoyance. "Have you forgotten? Call up an Avox to your room if you're curious, nobody'll miss one less of them around, I bet."

He waits until the bartender had brought the next round and gone before he continues, thoughtfully. "That's a very broad question. Which part? The very end, when they've just let out the last breath? Or the part before that, when you stick the knife in their gut or the bullet in their brain, the actual act of killing? There's just so many aspects to the art."

"Oh, no, I'm hardly the type to do it without a reason. Personal satisfaction doesn't really rank up that highly for me." She shrugs. "I think...how do you feel the moment you decide to go through with it? Before the act."

"Your loss," Alpha shrugs back. There's no point in trying to downplay his personality here, he doubts she'd believe it or, for that matter, care. "I don't tend to spend a lot of time thinking it over. My thought process is more 'this person's in the way. And now they're not.' If I'm feeling anything at that point it's usually...desire." Either for whatever they're keeping from Alpha or simply the desire to pass the time with a new toy.

"Really." Eva licks the rim of her glass and frowns. "That's very pedestrian, almost."

"Hm," said Alpha. "Well, that's your opinion, of course. I tend to focus on the time in between the decision to kill and the actual instant of death. Deciding how to carry it out, that process. Far more interesting. Why, how did you remember it?"

"Well, I just imagined a connoisseur like yourself would have something more interesting to say about deciding to kill than resorting to pure-" she hiccups, "pragmatism. It's so utilitarian. So...bloodless."

And then she laughs, because killing is hardly bloodless at all.

Alpha had mostly ignored the past Victors and Mentors. Now he considered keeping a closer eye on them, because, judging by Eva and what he knows of them, they're probably the most unstable group of people in the city.

"A connoisseur," he repeated, turning the word over in his head. "Flattering. I've never been called pragmatic, either, this is a night full of new experiences. I like to think of myself as a man of passion."

That's putting it lightly, although it's not as if Sponsors are the most predictable either.

"I guess that all depends," she leans in close, not seductively but woozily, "on what it is you have a passion for, and whether it's worth even calling it a passion."

"Does it?" said Alpha, lifting a hand to push her firmly back towards her own seat. He was not in the mood to have drunken middle-aged women falling into his lap. "Are you the one to ask, to make sure I'm worthy of word 'passion'."

Her tone changes there. Something steely and violent glints in her eyes. Muscles in her jaw tense. "Don't touch me."

And she takes another drink.

Alpha paused and a slow smile crept onto his face. "Not the cuddly type? And here I was hoping we could top off this lovely night with a snuggle."

Eva reaches a hand over and places it on Alpha's shoulder. She tries to make it slinky but it's clearly retaliatory. "No, I'm plenty cuddly. But you're not understanding our relationship here. You're a Tribute, I'm a Mentor. I can touch if I want, but vice versa..."

She wags a finger.

Alpha let the smile sharpen into something sharper, more predatory. "Is that so? Sounds kind of boring to me, not to mention a waste of my not inconsequential talents in the touching department." He pointedly didn't remove the hand from his shoulder, instead leaned forward. "But if you're asking me to lie back and think of the Capitol--well, I don't really have a choice in the matter, do I?" If not for the biting tone, just by words alone, someone might think he was flirting. But Eva's not exactly his type.

Well. Alright. She's a little bit his type. But his type usually ends cut to ribbons and left to rot, so it's not terribly flattering.

Eva licks her lips and narrows her eyes. Her teeth make a noise inside her skull as the front ones grind against the back ones. "I'm not asking you to do anything. I'm older than you. I've long since gotten bored with toys."

She removes her hand to signal the bartender for another drink. "I'm only reminding you that I can."

"But I'm such a fun toy," Alpha protested mockingly. "And I'd say something about my fondness for the older ladies, but as you've made clear, it's not about what I want."

He took a small sip of his own drink while she gestured at the bartender. Eva was proving a far better distraction than the alcohol he'd come here for. "I do appreciate the reminder. Such a good mentor, keeping us abreast of the situation. What would we do without you?"

"Oh, you'd just die," she says, and then she throws back her head and cackles. "Oh, oh wait, hahaha, you're doing that already, we're all doing that already!"

She smacks the counter and chugs the next drink that comes. She leans forward and rests her head on the counter. "I'm so hilarious, Alpha. I kill me."

"Huh," he said thoughtfully. "So much for your mentoring skills."

Alpha watched her display with raised eyebrows. "You do have a way with words," he said dryly, then added, "Although you're not actually the one dying, in this scenario. You are in fact in this position because you didn't die, while everyone else did. So in that respect, you are quite good at what you do."

"Good at what I did. There's a big difference. They give you so much direction when you're a Tribute and once you get out it's like...like..." She frowns and runs a finger along the rim of her glass.

"It's like being blindfolded and walking along a field full of mines. If you step wrong, you may die. Or, more likely, you'll just blow your foot off, and have to crawl the rest of the way across with a leaky stump for a leg. And you can hear the moans of all the people who've blown their legs off already but you can't see them to figure out how they got that far across."

She wags a finger at him. "It's no fun, and you'll never get to exorcise that angry streak. Never."

Edited 2013-03-25 03:54 (UTC)

"Eloquent," said Alpha flatly, watching the finger waved in his face with an amused expression. "Maybe that's the bright side to getting sent into the Arena again and again." And again, and again, and again and it was all such a waste of his time.

"I'm allowed a whole new playground every other month in which to...vent my frustrations. Whereas you, you've got--well." He waved a hand at the bar around them. "Doesn't have quite the same kick."

She nods. "Your future," she says, gesturing to the bar. "If you win before they put you out to pasture. Get a good long look at it."

She sighs and watches her reflection in the glass. "Now all I get to do is beat up Avoxes."

"My future," Alpha repeated with a snort. Hardly. In his future was escape, and home, and Echo. "Oh, well, I'm sure I'll find some new outlet to occupy my time. Perhaps I'll come by to visit you, remind what it's like if you're still interested. How often do they take inventory on those Avoxes, wouldn't notice one or two missing, do you think?"

She smiles at his little snort. "Oh, what, you think you're better than this? That you're such a smart little snowflake that you'll get some other prize on the other side of the door?"

She frowns then and waves a finger at him. "You best not tempt me when I'm drunk, sir. I might take you up and hate myself in the morning."