Your rhinestone eyes are like factories far away

[molotov]

Who| Molotov and Black Tom, A GIANT FUCKING OPEN PARTY
What| Molotov has one of those birthday things
Where| Tom's Mentor Suite, .infinity
When| August 7th
Warnings/Notes| to be updated if necessary

I. For Tom
Birthdays are honestly not something that Molotov finds very important. At most, they're an excuse to be treated specially, and she's now treated specially 24/7. It becomes almost boring after a while, and so she has mostly thrown away the gifts and bouquets that began arriving from fans about a week ago. She's kept a handful of the good ones, but really, what does she need with more roses? More candy, more clothing? She'd give them to charity if there were any, but she winds up tossing most of it in garbage bags that she gives to Avoxes to throw away.

She puts some of the bouquets, the nicer ones, in the common areas of the Suite. She thinks that's a very nice thing of her to do for the rest of them.

So when the alarm goes off in the morning, she doesn't really expect anything out of today, at least not on a personal level. She knows she has to go to her birthday party in the evening, but even that's more of a contractual obligation than anything else (it's being sponsored by the companies that make her vodka and lingerie lines). In fact, she even made it perfectly clear to Tom last night that she doesn't want to go out and do anything, and she'll be perfectly fine if he doesn't even remember. Or just pretends to forget.

Molotov isn't dumb enough to think he'll listen, because if there's a chance to show off, he'll take it. But she can say she tried.

II. Open prompt at .infinity nightclub

It is bright. It is loud. It is amazing.

It is Molotov's birthday party (brought to you by M Vodka and Consummare Apparel).

The party doesn't even begin until ten at night, and everyone of any importance in the Capitol has been invited, whether they showed up or not: Helena and Julian of Panem Nightly News are chatting up anyone who'll let them talk, and Cesar Flickerman is in the pool with roughly two dozen beautiful young people surrounding him.

All Games personnel and of-age Tributes have had an open invitation extended to them.

The music is loud, the dance floor packed, and there's a plethora of waitresses in heart-shaped eyepatches and lingerie walking around with trays of free alcohol. Vodka shots and cocktails abound -- don't get alcohol poisoning.

Molotov herself is up on the VIP balcony, which is roped off and contains few other people, though she might approve you if she likes you enough. She looks down over the party like a goddess, only coming down occasionally for the first hour or two, because she's still annoyed at wardrobe. She can't say she ever thought it would take three interns combined to pull a dress over her ass, or that she'd sit through four hours of hair on her own birthday.

But you'll be forgiven for focusing on her face, because for the first time since she arrived, Molotov is out in public without an eyepatch. Her left eye has been replaced, for the evening, with a glass one that seems to contain a whole galaxy, and the stars swirl and soar artfully between each blink of her eye.

She still can't see out of it, but at least it's pretty.

Comments

[pimpcanes]

He lets her continue to guide him, to express her desire so he can fulfill it, even if at the moment all that is is to pause and absorb everything about this instant in which they are living, breathing, sweating, communing. He wants the rest of their lives to be like this, her asking and him filling that need, performing for her whatever her heart desires because that satisfies the both of them.

He loves her in a way that obliterates his entire past and creates nothing but a shimmering, endless and perfect future. It all hinges on her, the years ahead of them trailing her like a bridal train.

He rests his forehead against hers. He lets their noses touch and he pulls her close.

"I've a ring for you in the cockpit."

[molotov]

Molotov holds the sides of his face and tries not to breathe obnoxiously hard into his face before she kisses him, needy and demanding and more filled with love than she thought she could ever be. She keeps touching his jaw when she breaks away, leaving only room to breathe between them.

She has a lot of thoughts happening right now, and it's so hard to sort through them all as quickly as she needs to. "A ring," she repeats softly, like she hasn't even thought of it, and she really hasn't, because in this moment, it seems almost insignificant compared to everything else, to what there is between them.

Kissing him again, she moves to sit on the floor, leaning back against the seats. She gropes in their pile of clothes for his shirt and pulls it around herself like a blanket, and then a laugh bubbles up from inside her because she can't stop smiling and she doesn't ever remember being so happy in her life. "We're going to get married."

[pimpcanes]

He's no more eager to break the contact between them than she is, and his hands splay across the back of her head, holding her close, the two of them naked in a helicopter over a white expanse of snow that seems as full of possibilities as the life they can make together. He lets her dress and, the moment not lost but put in stasis while all the blood rushes through their hearts, slips his pants on.

"You're going to make me the luckiest man alive, Molotov Cocktease." He laughs back, and there are tears in his eyes. "Even more than I already am."

[molotov]

She laughs again and watches him, slipping her arms through the sleeves of his shirt and bunching the cuffs around her wrists where they're too long. She waits for him to sit next to her, so she can lean against him. She sees the tears in his eyes and kisses his nose, reaching for his hand.

"I only want one thing," she murmurs, squeezing his hand. "I want it to be just us, the real thing. I don't care if we have a big giant wedding afterward and sell the whole thing, but I want to know that we didn't actually let them have the best moment of our lives. We give them so much already."

[pimpcanes]

He blinks away the tears into her hair, happy enough that his whole body feels as if it's warm and weightless.

"Whatever you wish. I wouldn't want some of these people intruding on an intimate moment anyway." That isn't necessarily true; Tom would want the showiest, tackiest wedding possible if it were up to him, but he's all too happy to subsume his desires into hers. "But we have to make the announcement suitably bombastic, once we've sealed the deal."

[molotov]

Truth be told, Molotov is just tired of the constant exposure -- almost every facet of their relationship has been broadcast across the country, from the moment they met until her leaving the Tower to get in the car and come here. She's a woman who's spent her whole life operating from the shadows, and having a spotlight that she can't control is uncomfortable enough (hence her determination to utterly reign over her own image since day one), let alone having it shown on even the most private moments.

She's willing to play their game, sell the pictures to the highest bidder in the media, invite important people she's never met. They can have a wedding special on television, and raffle off the centerpieces. She'll ride through the city in a carriage, waving like a fucking royal if that's what they want (and are willing to pay for).

But she can't give them the only moment of absolute meaning she might ever have, that actual promise between herself and Tom. It's not theirs to gawk at and chatter about like monkeys.

"I would expect nothing less." She noses against the side of his face. "I want it to take them by storm. I won't even wear the ring out until we're ready to blow their minds." By which she means where is my fucking ring, give it to me.

this icon though why is he in a suit in the bathtub

[pimpcanes]

It's one place where they diverge; Tom doesn't think he could become tired of the exposure. It plays into every egocentric conception he has of himself, his desire for the spotlight not for its own sake but so he can exclude everyone else and take it for himself. It's vindictiveness as much as arrogance, wanting to have because he deserves and more important, because he can deny things to others.

But they can have both - the intimate moment that she so desires, and the pomp of Tom's fantasies of a Capitol wedding. He'll have to start a hit list for any important people who don't show up. He wants every major family in the Capitol there to schmooze with.

"Are you being subtle with your hints right now, my dear?" He untangles from her and gets up to grab the ring from the cockpit.

"Close your eyes."

lol i think in that photoshoot, he actually took a bath in the suit

[molotov]

That's all she wants, that one moment of real privacy, and then she doesn't care if he wants to cover the whole city in white flowers and doves. She actually doesn't have strong opinions on very many aspects of a wedding, coming from a place where weddings were small and people cared more about the food and alcohol than any other extravagances.

So Tom is free to design the wedding of his crazy dreams.

"Oh, so says the king of subtlety," she teases, but releases him and closes her eye anyway, biting her lip from excitement.

[pimpcanes]

Just wait. Somehow there will be dragons and time travel involved. He is from the Marvel Universe, after all.

He returns to her with a claddagh ring, one with a diamond the size of an eyeball resting on it, cut into a flat shield shape with just enough edge that it could be used as weapon or jewelry. And he gets down on one knee, just for her.

[molotov]

Dragons, she's okay with, but she would prefer no time travel shenanigans. And also that Tom try his best to remain fully human until at least after the honeymoon. Everyone must remain as human as possible until they aren't in her wedding pictures and/or having sex with her.

Molotov almost laughs at how stereotypical he's gone, a claddagh, but holds her left hand out anyway so that he can put the ring on her finger. She fists her other hand in the sleeve of his shirt and holds it to her mouth, smiling so hard that she's naturally inclined to cover it up.

[pimpcanes]

What, not a floraphile? I have bad news for you, Molotov.

If this were entirely about Tom and his endless need for drama and attention, he would have stacked the helicopter full of photographers for this exact moment. It takes all his self-restraint not to phone them up so that they'll be lined up for the landing. But he loves her, and he respects her, and he wouldn't want to jeopardize how she remembers this moment.

The moment he slips this ridiculous gaudy ring onto her slender finger.

[molotov]

Look, she's not having sex with a branch and that seems pretty reasonable to her, okay?

The ring makes her fingers look even smaller, nearly overlaps onto her middle finger and pinkie, and it sparkles even without direct light on it. She immediately leans forward and wraps her arms around his neck once she has the ring on, pressing her smile into the side of his neck.

"You know this means we're moving out of the Tower, right? Like hell am I going to be living with a bunch of roommates when I'm Mrs. Cassidy."

[pimpcanes]

What about a stump, though. A sexy sexy stump.

"I can hear the sighs of relief from here," he says, stroking her hair. "Shall that be where we have the reception? Or should we do it so far away that only the wealthiest can travel out to see it, and those getting reimbursed by their media mogul employers?"

[molotov]

Wouldn't that imply death? Is she to be a necrophile now too?

"I'm going to tell an Avox to keep deleting all their shows. And to pour their milk down the drain." She shifts, moves until she's practically in his lap, their foreheads touching. "Depends on where they'll let us do something huge and stupid that inconveniences everyone else. We could release ten thousand balloons, that's fairly annoying to people who don't like us. Not doves, though -- they'll stick around for ages, shitting on everything, and I don't need that when I'm on a run."

[pimpcanes]

Is it a necrophile if they have an extremely high likelihood of coming back, due to ~comics~? Probably.

"We could have passenger pigeons instead of doves, and train them to roost right above the District Ten Suite. Nowhere near your running trails." He kisses her between words, gently and softly but not at all chaste. "Why stop at ten thousand balloons? I could buy you a million. And if we pooled our funds we could take the entire balloon industry."

[molotov]

It is if they're currently dead. Resurrection status is irrelevant.

Molotov smiles and snorts, brushes her nose against his and lets one hand trail over his shoulder, run down his chest. "No birds. Ten thousand balloons should be plenty. Maybe twenty thousand. And sparklers. Things that will look amazing in the pictures." She pauses and kisses him for longer, enough time that she's nearly forgotten what they're talking about, but then she pulls back and holds his face, speaking seriously and tapping his nose with one finger. "And no branding on anything, I don't care what the companies offer us. They can contribute to the gift bags, nothing else."

[pimpcanes]

"Fireworks in the shape of your face again, perhaps?" He grins and traces his fingers over her cheekbone as she breaks away from the kiss, still heady with the smell of her, the taste of her on his lips. "Oops. I may have spoiled your surprise for tonight."

[molotov]

She lets out a pretend groan and throws her head back with fake frustration. "Stop making things in the shape of my face, you ridiculous man," she says, gently shaking his head by tugging back and forth on his goatee. "They're going to accuse us of treason, say you're trying to supplant Snow's glory with mine or something. Besides, they do fireworks too much here, I want something new and brilliant for our wedding."

Molotov kisses him again and bites his lip. "We might have to fabricate a honeymoon spot anyway, god only knows if they'll let us out of the city."

[pimpcanes]

"I couldn't very well have a diamond cut to resemble your face. I had to do with the next best thing."

He grins, drumming his fingers over her shoulder. "I've already applied for passes to a resort in District Four. And enough sunscreen to drown a small child, since I warrant we'll both need it."

[molotov]

She can only snort, because he's so absurd and she loves him so much.

"You're being presumptuous, don't you think?" she asks, pulling him back to her by the chin, kissing him. "Thinking that we'll be going out in the sun at all. Or anywhere that I can't have you all to myself."

[pimpcanes]

"Are you being presumptuous now?" he asks before following that kiss up by kissing her chin, her throat. "In thinking I didn't just rent us our own private beach?"

[molotov]

"I can think of about a dozen places that I don't want to be washing sand out of, so there better be a good cabana, if that's what you're aiming for." She smiles and tilts her head, bares her neck to him like she would never do for someone else. "And protection from the paparazzi?"

Molotov is very serious about not having sex pictures of her in the media.

[pimpcanes]

"Of course there is. Tell me, would a palanquin borne by Avoxes be too much of an intrusion on your sense of privacy?" He plants kisses on her neck, worshiping her the whole time.

Given how often they've banged, there probably are sex pictures out there somewhere, but Tom takes plenty of time at Peacekeeper HQ deleting his and Molotov's intimate moments off the tape reels. And getting paid for it!

[molotov]

"No, but where are they taking us?" she asks, reaching up to the side of his face and letting her nails trail on his cheek. "I imagine it would be terribly turbulent to have sex while they walk to no particular place."

It's a very important part of his duties as a Peacekeeper, as far as she's concerned. As long as he's the only one watching (and/or doing other things, as Molotov is sure that few men have the necessary amount of self-restraint).

[pimpcanes]

"To the cabana, of course." He watches her nails as best he can from the corner of his eye, like a cat adoring the hand that pets it. Then he takes her hand, heavier now with that ridiculous ring, and holds it over his heart.

"I'll have to start introducing you as Molotov Cocktease, renowned mercenary and spy and my fiancée."