thecapitol | [closed] l'amour t'attend?

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[closed] l'amour t'attend?

Who| Phillip and Venus
What| Foxy decides to play with Phil's clothes
Where| Around D6
When| May 23?
Warnings/Notes| Phil being an awkward idiot, the sky is blue

Celebrity was really a full-time job as it turns out, and it was exhausting, even for a man like Phil used to the rush of the Pizzeria. It had been months since he was reaped and died in the Arena but the Capitolites couldn't get enough of the scandals and affairs that surrounded the Tower. As the District 6 Staff pulled themselves together, the rags were getting antsy in what would happen next. After a few questions were avoided while Gray ran some quick and near errands, training and preparing seemed like a good way to tire his mind and body out. He may have overdone it and Phil groaned for a bit.

"You know what fixes this? A hot bath," Phil thought out loud as he let Foxy around his feet. It really lifted his spirits to have a pet around, unconditional love that greeted him every time he opened the door or woke up. The Phone Guy laughed and scratched the foxling's head as he pulled off his tie and sports jacket. "I shouldn't feel this old…" In any other case, being thirty one, nearly thirty two would have been the prime of life in an average American man.

As he stretched and took off his clothes, he gave himself one more look in the mirror. Phillip still couldn't believe he was still alive after everything that's happened. Hell, he found some degree of toning on his lean frame. This was good right? Right! Foxy, on the other hand, had no such problems or conundrums, as he was a tiny fox. He did however find his master's pants with the shiny shiny badge on them. It's not until he noticed what his pet was doing that Phillip realized..."Foxy! Get back here! My pants are not your toys!" Nope they were now, and they were very portable. "This is- Foxy!" Phil grabbed the nearest towel and sprinted to the door. "Bad fox!" He had yet to realize that he was sprinting around practically naked in his District Suite.

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Venus is loitering around the District Six Suite out of boredom more than anything. Since she's hiding a nasty injury on her abdomen, she can't do much at the gym anymore, and the six hours a day she isn't spending there seems like a wide-open Oklahoma field of nothing. She eventually decides to visit Phil and see if he wants to see a movie with her. She isn't expecting that he'll be too busy, although who knows? Escorts schedule things at strange times.

The sight of him sprinting through the living room after a miniature fox supersedes all her expectations. She turns the corner and catches him right as the towel falls and reveals his pale buttocks in his attempt to catch the pet.

"Should I come back another time?" she says, not even bothering to suppress the giggle.

Gray finally had his dear Foxy cornered, when he heard a voice that in any other moment would have been welcomed. Right now? The exact opposite.

"...Freddy kill me now," Phillip hissed under his breath as he realized just how much he was exposing himself to Venus and pretty much everyone tuning into the security feed. He was officially in his birthday suit and not even him covering his shame would make this moment anything but embarrassing.

"H-hi Vee, um, nice of y-you to drop by! Heh, um, looking for someone?" he tried to do small talk, keyword her being "tried". He had trouble to talking to her on a good day and clothed, this was just karma getting creative. "You're looking good, yeah!"

"And you're looking nude," she says, intentionally mispronouncing the word a bit so it rhymes with his 'good'.

Politely, Venus averts her face and covers her eyes with her hand, although her grin can still be seem in the way her cheeks are rounded about her nose. "I was looking for you, actually. But, I mean, like I said, I can come back later..."

She can't help but laugh.

Gray rushed to get the towel back up to his waist and glared slightly at the chattering and teething foxling before he grabbed the creature. "You're getting a time-out in the closet. Bad pup." All he got as a response was a lick to the hand and a tiny tail wag.

Phil pouted rather comically at Venus' wordplay, "Not that good, stop pretending would ya?" Some of the Great Lakes slipped in that sentence. But he couldn't stop the smile that came with her laugh, "Come inside then, I was about to take a shower and, uh, well, this little pirate decided he was raiding my pants for treasure or...the kibble I had there once upon a time."

Nope, Foxy just liked the portable obstacle course.

"I really can come back another time if you need to shower, Phil. Believe me, I can hold my horses until you get clothes on." She continues to smile. "You could say I can keep my pants on until then."

She wants to crouch down and examine the fox - she's pretty sure it was a fox, but she had politely turned away before she got a good look at it.

"So, what's his name? Unless it is just 'bad pup'."

These are the moments Phillip is thankful that his shower is away from prying eyes, or Venus would be delighted with the still flushed skin. As he stepped into the streams and took care of business, trying his damnedest to be calm and professional (a feat considering what just happened), he answered,

"His name's Foxy, I know, not terribly original, but it's a name from home, Foxy the Pirate. Used to be my favorite way back when I was starting out."

The foxling seems to tell when someone wants to get close, he's a smart little beastie, and merely rolls around on the floor, to amuse Venus into giving him kibble or scratches. When Gray comes out of his suite all dressed in a simple jeans, shirt and tie, he watches his friend and pet.

"I guess it took a death match world for me to finally have a pet, funny enough. Turns out he thinks he's clever or something. C-Can I offer you a drink or something?"

"Sure." Venus, in her sun dress that winds tight around her hips, feels a little overdressed in comparison but doesn't say anything to the effect, doesn't even indicate it at all. She's good at that, putting people at ease.

"You know, I always wanted a pet? But you can't really have one as a foster kid, unless whatever parents you get have one of their own, and then it's never really yours. Maybe I should get one in Panem." She takes a seat at the kitchen counter. She won't of course - she anticipates her 'retirement' is nigh. "So you'll have to put up with me visiting Foxy the Vulpine Pirate all the time."

She grins. "I'd probably name mine Vulpix, so you're not the only one naming them after nostalgic stuff."

"I don't think Foxtrot over there would mind being spoiled by someone as sweet as you," Phil spoke and immediately regretted saying that last part. That was a bit too personal for what he said they were back in Arena 13. Maybe she won't give it that much thought, he hoped as he came out with two beer cans, "It's what on tap, I guess."

"And Vulpix? What's that from? I went the way of the dodo in 1993, I've probably missed a few things," Gray admtted while Foxy stook on his hind legs to patter around on his shins. Looking at Venus, she looked amazing in that dress, much more...natural for lack of a better word.

"Thanks!" She takes the beer and cracks the top, taking a swig as if it's nothing. She's a lightweight, but she knows how to make drinking a beer look like something from a commercial, because she's done said commercials for a hefty paycheck. She sets the can down and rests her chin on her hands.

"Oh, yeah, you totally missed the Pokémon wave. Vulpix...try and pull it up on your device, you'll see what I mean. It's the only thing is this room cuter than my hairdo."

"That's impossible levels of cute then," Gray added a little more openly, the bitter taste of beer gave him a bigger boost to his confidence. Unlike Venus, he was used to the intakes and this was a starting buzz. "If there ever was an eighties trivia night here, we'd probably have a good time but," he was already looking at the creature in his device. "It's fox related isn't it?"

A quick double snap of his fingers and Foxy obediently trotted into his cubby, and curled up with his tail. "I feel like I've missed pretty much everything important after I went away. And I am definitely looking for that movie you acted in." He definitely remembered that detail.

Venus preens in an exaggerated, comical way, resting her chin on the back of her hand and making big, fluttery doe eyes at him.

"Yeah, it like, it evolves into this really pretty fox thing with nine tails. I don't know, I never played the games, but my cousin had the playing cards." She raises her eyebrows and snorts when Foxy so obediently responds to Phil's commands. She's sure it's just playing along, that it's not actually so whipped, or it wouldn't have stolen his pants earlier.

"What year did you go away? I can catch you up to like, 2005. I was born in '85, so."

"Hear that Foxy? Nine tails if you grow up," Gray joked around, while the canine rested on.

Foxy may have been a genetically modified animal but there was plenty of trickster left in him. He only obeyed because he will be rewarded but in his eyes, Phillip sucks as a pack member. But it's when she says her birth year that Phil nearly choked on his drink. Oh my God, he thought as he regain composure, I'd be FORTY-THREE in 2005! "I di- went away in 1993, if you can believe it," he admitted just a little shy, "Yeah you saw the fashion disasters."

He'd rather not talk about what really happened then...he doesn't want to bring her down.

"And Fire Blast, if I remember correctly."

Venus raises her eyebrows and grins at him, incredulity giving way to pure humor and her features. "Seriously? You died in ninety-three? When I was eight?"

She gets up from her seat and swaggers on close to tease him. "What was it like with black and white television, grandpa? How did you survive the Great Depression? Ooh, wait, tell me about when you used to ride dinosaurs!"

"I'm a fossil, I know," Phil laughed along then straightened himself for the answers Venus sought with a passion for theatrics, "The Fresh Prince was just getting his groove, I know...I hear he became a really successful actor." Phone Guy needs a Will Smith marathon. He will get Vee to sing the theme song if he can, because come on. It's better than singing Duran Duran or trying to emulate Ziggy Stardust.

"We had to fiddle with the rabbit ears if we wanted to see the moving pictures, you see." This is true, Phil owned a rabbit-eared TV and it was a finicky bastard. "I survived the Big One with peas and bread while we had the T-Rex parked in the back. We had to let it go and roam the Great Plains because it kept eating the neighbor's dogs and the traffic cones. I'm gonna miss old Rex, what a good boy."

Venus laughs at that. "Oh, man. You haven't seen Tee-Two. You haven't seen Independence Day. You haven't seen Jurassic Park, have you?"

And yet, Venus missed so much of her youth due to homelessness and depression that the idea of going back into the past not only stokes excitement in her for Phil, but also to dig up everything she didn't get a chance to enjoy the first time around.

She laughs, honestly, musically, at Phil's jokes. "See, you think you're being funny, but you haven't seen Jurassic Park, so you don't know how true that is."

Phillip shook his head and admitted with some of his sheepish demeanor, "Nope, but I'm really hoping you'll tell me all that and more, what else did I miss?" The way he was beaming at Venus, it made him forget why he missed all that. "Is there an actual Tyrannosaurus rex parked at a house? Spare no details, I'm all ears and do you want water?" The energy they shared is contagious, and it spreads like radiant light in the room. It's become apparent that Venus could be bullshitting about the future and Phillip would believe it wholeheartedly.

"Are phones like...super advanced like these?" he had to ask, "And computers? Is it true that the internet is mostly used for porn?" Some facts are best corrected before he internalizes them.

"Uh. The Backstreet Boys. Salt-n-Pepa. Paris Hilton, although you lucked out there. Titanic. About a thousand worthwhile movies and a hundred thousand shitty ones, I'm betting. I bet we can dig up a few around here to watch when the next Arena's over." She nods over at the water dispenser on the fridge. "And can I trouble you to stick a lemon in it? I'm a sucker for a little sweet and sour, since I actually have taste buds now."

She could be bullshitting, and God knows Venus is an excellent bullshitter, but why would she? She likes Phil, and the last thing she wants is to be caught in a lie that would erode his trust for her.

"Uh, not quite this advanced. I have a flip-phone back home, and I think these flat wrist ones are totally new. But the internet's totally a porn hub, porn and music piracy."

"I don't mind the crappy movies, I once did a marathon of those Hammer Studio back when-" Phil stopped short for a moment...would he let Venus know the truth about Freddy's? Would she hate him if she knew of his inaction and the deadly consequences that happened? It might have been a few milliseconds but for Phone Guy, the decision was almost eternal.

He decided to go for it. It's better to be honest and if Milo still wants to be his friend after the truth, then so be it. Though Phil couldn't deny the speed his heart would beat around her.

"Back when things were still good back at the restaurant. My boss would have the big brick cellphone. And-" Gray sighed, "Figured the upcoming web to connect the world is used for triple-x material."

"Back when?"

She's about to back off and let him know she doesn't need to know, or maybe warn him that anything he says here is bound to be recorded and broadcast for everyone in the city if not the nation, but then he continues on and it all sounds innocuous enough. And so she plays along, continues with the light and harmless conversation.

She pretends she barely heard any waver in his voice at all.

"Hey, it's also used for cat pictures and dumb Flash games. Figures that thirty years after Pong's invented we're still playing it with just better graphics."

"Someone will have to explain to me what the cat thing is. I'm a dog person, I'm afraid," Phil laughed at the thought, "And Pong's a classic, don't knock it until you've tried it. Then again, most of the games I've played are probably relics by now."

Her question of back when puts him at the same crossroads, and while he's pretty sure he's being recorded, he doesn't have much of an alternate image. If this friendship thing was going to work, a few things would have to come to light. Even if they painted him as a coward. "Yeah, things went down really bad. I, uh, I really screwed up back home you know."

"I've been trying to deal with some of the mistakes I've done and-" he offered Venus a soft smile, "You've been a good help in that process."

He didn't want to weigh her down but he had to thank Milo in some way.

Edited 2015-08-17 05:53 (UTC)

"Well, Foxy's kind of a mix of both, isn't he? He's a dog, but smart as a cat."

She watches his eyes when he tells her what he must have been holding back for weeks, if not months. There isn't a trace of judgment in her face, not because she's excellent at holding her expressions back but because she feels no right to condemn, nothing but a deep sympathy in her soul that reaches out through her to Phil.

"I'm glad for that. You know, I..." She sits straighter, like she's in a confessional booth. "I made some mistakes too. I'm sure you can tell."

"We've all made them," there's no denying that they had something in common: guilt. They both were bound by a guilt they hid behind smiling masks full of cracks, Venus' was made of better, harder material. But above all, Phil doesn't judge her for them, he simply listens and opens the door for her. He sets his drink down and nodded slightly, the confessional went both ways as it were.

"You carry your mistakes with you, they don't let you go either," he admitted in a low but steady voice, while giving Milo a chance to let the words come. Gray doesn't know how deep her issues went, how much blood trails in her steps, but what he does know is that he can tell she might need this moment of vulnerability. He knows what he's done, or rather what he should have done and the cries of the parents will never stop ringing.

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[closed] l'amour t'attend?

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