thecapitol | Boys, say you got a girl? Yes, true you got a man

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Boys, say you got a girl? Yes, true you got a man

WHO| Phi and D4 Party House, feat. Sigma Klim!
WHAT| Most of Phi's District staff live off-location, so Phi goes to do some networking. Things get a little out of hand when Phi decides it would be a fun idea to text Sigma about all the fun (read: booze) she's having. No one likes the party police.
WHEN| During the last week of the arena. [Backdated]
WHERE| D4 house in the Capitol.
WARNINGS| Underage drinking, minor drug use, etc.

Death by vicious animal is not Phi's preferred way to die, but it's better than some of the others she's experienced in the past. It doesn't even faze her when she wakes up in the Capitol again like nothing happened, not a single mark on her body. The only weird part is that everyone else remembers it as well. And they don't seem keen on letting her forget.

When the Tower feels too stifling, Phi finds herself heading for the store. She grabs a couple bags of chips, but only after an argument with the clerk over whether or not she should be allowed to buy a case of beer. You can die for the Capitol, but you can't buy a 12-pack. Sounds fair.

She ends up at a house out in one of the residential parts of the Capitol, an address that she'd been given but had never taken the time to visit. When you only have a week to train like your life actually does depend on it, there's not a whole lot of time to waste. Now she has all the time in the world, as far as she can tell, and she needs to be away from the cameras and the crowds. This is the only place she can think of.

"Here," she says as soon as the door opens, thrusting the three bags of chips at whoever opens the door and hoping they take pity on her. "Can I crash here for a while?"

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He's already rolling his eyes when she argues, prepared to snort and bicker the way they always have, a petty fight with no blood drawn. But by her third sentence Phi has draw blood and Sigma's eyes snap to hers at once. His expression warps from disbelief into horror, and utterly crumbles, if only for an instant in time, when she is done. He has no words to answer her with. In fact, he has no voice - his astonished what? has escaped his lips as air.

And she is not wrong; this was the ending he had chosen for himself and he'd known from the start he must live with that decision. But Phi had not made him a deal the way the Initiate had. He could not defend himself with the relentless grief he had endured. He could not argue that he had wished with all his might that he could undo his entire Panemian life, cut his decision to fight from the root, unfurl all of his precious memories- done nothing, been nothing- to prevent her from screaming like that. He could not confess to have been drowning in a room of cheering men. Instead he shakes his head, aghast. No, in his attempt to do something right, the choice had been made for him long before.

"...You are right. I cannot tell."

Unable to endure her another second, he stares into the table like it has an answer for him. He withers there on the couch, neck bent over his lap, humiliated. He had never called Phi his friend in her presence because he hadn't thought it necessary - not in the face of their mutual understanding, after all they had survived. Now he wonders if he, too quick to trust and to bleed, had fooled himself. "I see that I... have misunderstood something." It is a quiet revelation. The entire night has been a series of misconstructions but this one has broken his heart. Regardless of what she had said, he wasn't there for her the way he would had been, once. Fifty years of an identity he had tried not to lose threatens to slip quietly into the smoke.

He hesitates before lifting off of the couch, though he does not seem to know where to go from there. Awkwardly, he shuffles over to Meulin. His mouth opens and closes until he smiles joylessly. "...I came to ensure she was safe. I suppose I can leave that to you?" He tries to persuade himself that she would take good care of Phi. He flutters there, unprepared to leave but not willful enough to stay. There's still something puzzling him and he can not bring himself to go until it is dealt with. He rounds again on Phi, perplexed, lost. Floundering for driftwood and looking like a fool.

"Ah... One last thing. Why did you send me that photograph?"

It would have been better for all of them if she had simply kept him in ignorance, and yet she did not, knowing how it would incite him. He had thought it a joke in poor taste, a sign that she'd had enough. Now he would know if she'd meant it as a message.

If it weren't for Sigma, Phi would be feeling pretty damn good right now. The stunned silence feels powerful. For once, there's a bit of control that has landed in her hands, and she feasts like a starved woman who was just handed bread. Derek's agreement only adds to that, and Kurloz's choked and distorted laughter on top of that. She is the authority in this conversation. She has the high ground, and she has made it a platform on which to free all the wrongs that she's been harboring in her chest.

Sigma's expression splashes acid all over her feast, poisoning whatever satisfaction she managed to find.

He's hurt. That much is clear enough. All the bluster and self-importance that he had entered the room with is gone--evaporated like water in the face of her heated rebuke. For a moment, she's reminded so strongly of the Sigma that she remembers from Rhizome 9, and not the Dr. Klim or Zero Sr. that has been the facade of the majority of their interactions in the Capitol. She's reminded of the dumb, trusting Sigma that had picked 'Ally' on more occasions than she cared to count simply because he inexplicably believed the best in others.

She feels guilty, and she hates him all over for it. It hadn't been her intention to wound him, only to deflate his ego--but she hadn't simply deflated it. She had crushed it. She had done the equivalent of taking a sledgehammer to the front of a car. Sure, the exterior seemed solid, but once that gave way, there was nothing left to protect the delicate bits inside. Miserable and still angry--but for a completely different reason now, Phi groans and rubs her face with one hand when he poses that question to her.

"I don't know, okay?" It seemed like a good idea at the time, before she knew that he would march over here and attempt to stick every single foot in the room in his mouth. A little bit of playful revenge for the grief he'd given her in the past. A little bit of spite for the tension between them now. It wasn't supposed to lead to all of this.

Why weren't things ever simple where Sigma was concerned?

She'd watched him as he shuffled over to Meulin, passing his torch of protection off to her, despite being unnecessary. His movements seem shaken and lost, like he's not entirely sure where he is or what to do. Clearly he means to leave, but at what cost?

Elapsum semel non ipse possit Iuppiter reprehendere.

Those words drift through her thoughts, as they have at every junction of her life, and she knows there's no choice to be made here. She can't let Sigma leave on his own like this, not with the state he's in. She turns to Derek, considering Meulin's deafness and Kurloz's incapacitated state.

"Thanks for everything tonight, but I'm going to walk him home. We can do this again some other time, when things have calmed down." If they aren't too mad at her for ditching them in the first place. If the offer is still open by then.

Derek turns towards Kurloz at that choked off noise, and there's a surprised, pleased light in his eyes. He hasn't made someone besides Chuck laugh since... well, probably since they were back in District Four, with Chuck's dad. But then Kurloz turns and walks away, and Derek realizes that he'd just helped make Kurloz a target. Without thinking about it, he turns back, planting himself between the Gamemaker and Kurloz - as though the Gamemaker would strike now, as though he wouldn't wait until he had the upper hand.

When the Gamemaker withers, Derek is more than surprised. He'd expected more shouting, maybe retreating into cold superiority and veiled threats, and he doesn't know what to do with the fact that the Gamemaker is seemingly surrendering. Derek doesn't buy the act - he can't, twenty-one years and he's never seen anything to hint that Gamemakers have feelings to be hurt, that the opinions of a Tribute mean anything to them.

But there is no threat to react to here, so he says nothing, just watches the Gamemaker prepare to leave.

Derek's eyes narrow speculatively at Phi when she turns to him, taking in her body language to try to determine if there's anything about her that says she's going with him unwillingly. There's obvious reluctance and uncertainty - but not the kind he's looking for. She clearly believes the Gamemaker is genuinely hurt.

He doesn't like it. Everything he knows says the Gamemaker is playing her, but maybe she's safer if she goes along with it.

So he tilts his head a little in acknowledgment, responding to both that and partially to the Gamemaker's request of Meulin, even though his words are directed to Phi. "You can protect yourself. We'll still be here to help when you need it."

Edited 2016-01-20 03:15 (UTC)

What a strange turn of events. Strange before that Phi has no qualm yelling at the Gamemaker and stranger still that Sigma takes it all, wilts under her harsh words. Eyes too used to seeing connections between people, relationships, still find this hard to categorize. Her head tilts in curiousity but she doesn't ask. Observing and keeping her eyes open for new leads always worked better than outright questioning.

So she merely smiles at Sigma when he asks her to take care of Phi, like she's so much older than Phi, like Phi can't take care of herself. Still, she understands overprotective friends and how much easier it is to nod along rather than fight them about it.

"Of course..." But she trails off as Phi speaks to Derek, with a resigned sort of tilt to her head, words unseen. Maybe leaving, maybe not. Hard to tell at this point. She errs on the side of caution.

"Trust me, we'll make sure she's taken care of no matter the circumstance. Especially here."

He's not exactly looking to see the results of his laughing in the face of an annihilated Gamemaker but he assumes the result to be eventual vengeance at best. And yet he can't stop. Derek looking all goddamn pleased with himself didn't help matters, not up at all.

It hurts to laugh aloud like this and every now and then he coughs for it. At least he'll die smiling, he supposes.

He's only barely paying attention to what's going on behind him, not enough to know the details of what's happening. He does gather at least that the situation is... possibly diffusing in its way. And Phi is leaving. That gets him to move.

He picks himself up, face screwed up as happens after a fair coughing fit. He holds his hand up to say wait. Then reaches for a paper and pen. He writes down the numbers to the house and to he and Meulin's phones to text. He hold's it out to give to Phi. Just in case. Damn him if she walks out of here and winds up dead in an alley. She could call for Peacekeepers but... well, she was a Tribute and he was a Gamemaker. Best to call them.

With that done he turns a sort of weak pout onto Derek.

All told, Sigma is too wounded to have noticed any laughter at his expense - perhaps upon reflection he will be ashamed, but for now Phi's words are still ringing in his ears. Maybe he would come to realize how he has disgraced himself, but as far as he was concerned now, it was all in the name of Phi's safety...

Her guilt is easily interpreted as the awkwardness before a severing and his eyes sting - he wants to melt into the streets outside right then, return to a manufactured world of schemes were he only had to play his part and feel nothing. How could you not know? But when she promises to walk him home, his face brightens with the hope of a sick animal let in from the cold and he stares at her, pupil wet and bright. Here he had a second chance, a sign that his life hadn't unfolded in the kiln of his mistakes. Sigma knows, as her friend, she deserved to stay and have fun with the people who (he knew now) had helped her when he wasn't there, but he selfishly keeps this thought cloistered. He needs to be promised that one less thing in the universe is broken else he break, himself.

He tries to bring himself to smile at Meulin's assurance, but cannot summon the energy. Instead he nods sagely, dumbly. It means more to him than Derek's claim that Phi can handle herself - after having saved her from a rock to the head, from a breathtaking poison, from a bomb set to blow in her face, he'd prefer that they all learn to accept help when they could take it. For not in one of his millions of lives has he ever not needed Phi.

It hasn't registered that Kurloz had given Phi their number to protect her from him, and the Gamemaker waves the group off awkwardly as if to thank them for it, still too stunned to behave with coherence. He waits anxiously by the door for fear that Phi would take things back on a whim. "Well... I suppose that will be all, then... Please excuse us. Good night." And, as a confused and unnecessary afterthought, "Happy Hunger Games." Dry and passionless, the most pathetic of endorsements.

Edited 2016-01-21 00:28 (UTC)

Derek's still making sure to keep himself between the Gamemaker and Kurloz, just in case, but he edges closer to Kurloz with a frown when he notices him writing something down again. He settles when he realizes he's writing down their numbers, and Derek reaches out to snatch the paper from Kurloz's fingers once he holds it out.

He pulls out his own pen - it's become habit carrying a pen around in the house, with him and Meulin and Kurloz all there - and scrawls his number next to theirs. Well, there's a possibility it might be Chuck's number, but pretty much the same thing. Then he hands it over to Phi.

After that, he sticks close to Kurloz, refusing to look at the Gamemaker more than just keeping an awareness on him out of the corner of his eye, just in case. Which is a good thing, because he tenses a little when the Gamemaker tells them happy Hunger Games, teeth clenched and fists curled, and he focuses on the pout that Kurloz shoots at him instead.

Part of him wants to apologize, and part of him wants to make another smart ass comment, but he doesn't want to do anything until the Gamemaker's actually gone, so he just waits.

What Phi expected was disappointment on the faces of her new friends here. She expected them to be dismayed--betrayed, even. She had told them to let Sigma in, then turned around and fought with him in the middle of their living room before deciding to leave altogether. She would have saved them a lot of grief if she'd just gone with Sigma in the first place.

But these people continue to surprise her.

Phi takes the note that Kurloz writes--after Derek has had a chance to snatch it away to add his own piece. It's a bunch of phone numbers, she realizes. Personal lines, not the public communication network that the rest of the tributes use. She now has a means to contact them privately, which she assumes (incorrectly) as a way for Kurloz to say that she's welcome to reschedule their plans. Derek all but confirms his continued support, and Meulin as well. She holds onto the paper for a moment, staring at it contemplatively before finally folding it up and pocketing it.

"Thank you." For once, she really means it. Somehow she managed to come out of this without making any enemies. She's not sure that she's ready or willing to call them friends, either... But she's not opposed to hanging out with them again.

Sigma choose that point in time to start making his goodbyes from the doorway, and anyone within sight of Phi's face would see her roll her eyes. It would be best if she leaves now, before Sigma says something to change her mind.

"I'll send a text when I get back to the Tower," she informs them as she heads to the door, in part to reassure them that she'll be alright and in part to prove her responsibility to Sigma. Sigma, who is currently wishing her staff a Happy Hunger Games. Frustration creeps back into her expression as she takes the Gamemaker by the elbow and pulls him outside.

"Can you not?" she chastises him, and though it's under her breath, it's still very much audible to (most of) the group before Phi shuts the door behind her.

Forty five years alone have made Sigma so averse to touch that his first instinct is to recoil. By the time she's dragged him outside he's halfway through slipping his arm away until the slamming of the door wakes him from his fog. He stops in his tracks, realizing that he has no intention of bringing himself even further from Phi. His limb drops uselessly and he allows himself to be seized, though he turns his head away in shame. Blinking back what could become tears before Phi has a chance to notice, he plays off his panic as exhaustion.

"...I'm sorry, did you say something?" He knows what she had asked, but that was something he'd felt obligated to say, confused as he was. Right now, appeasing the Capitol wasn't what he cared about, but his life wasn't the only one tolerated by the grace of their masters. She wouldn't understand why he can't apologize.

Not knowing what to do or where to begin, he sighs to himself and waits for her to tear into him in silence. He'd got what he wanted but, not unlike Phi, found his victory had cost too much.

Phi doesn't bother to dignify his question with a response. She knows that he heard her, but if he wants to play dumb, she doesn't see how repeating herself is going to make her any less frustrated with him. Just because she agreed to walk him home doesn't mean that she's prepared to forgive him just yet--if ever. Grudges are something of a specialty of hers.

Truth be told, Phi isn't sure where to begin. She walks in silence for a while. Despite the late hour, the streets aren't exactly empty. The Capitol has just as vibrant of a night life as any proper city back on Earth. People come and go past them on the sidewalk, mostly absorbed in their own plans and personal lives. A few of them seem to notice the Gamemaker and the Tribute walking side-by-side, but they don't make any motion to intercept them. Phi is left hoping that with the arena drawing to a close, any time she spends in Sigma's company will be overlooked in favor of juicier stories.

"I need these people on my side," she finally speaks up, once there's a semblance of empty space around them. "You get that, don't you? Whatever dumb hang-ups you have, you need to chill. They're my mentors, my stylist--and yeah, Meulin isn't staff, but she's part of the package. If I don't have them in my corner, I'm going to be doing a lot of dying in those arenas."

Sigma follows quietly behind Phi, an animal with his tail between his legs, hands in his pockets. With both eyes to ground, most people of the Capitol pass him by unthinkingly - this was not the charismatic man they knew from a screen. It is only when Phi speaks up that he lifts his head, hanging on her every word. When they are not the apology he had hoped for, he returns to watching the sidewalk.

He can barely hear himself answer. "...Right. I understand, now." He genuinely hadn't know she had such a safety net. When stylists dressed Sigma Klim the Tribute, it was to embarrass him, to show where a victor had struck the fatal blow or to decorate his head with the horns of a troll. And what of Meulin? Celebrus had started the rumor that had soured Phi's opinion of him in the first place and Sigma could not know whose pen wrote it. But Meulin was kind, and he'd already known that. "I honestly didn't think-" He shuts himself up. Right. He didn't think. No matter what he said, Phi wouldn't accept his excuses.

Most of all he wants to tell her that he was not responsible for her death in the Arena, but would it matter? Eventually, he would be. He could not control what trap she triggered, and eventually she would find herself in a snare of his creation. It is a promise he can't keep and that alone is enough to change his mind. He grinds his teeth until he tastes blood and it keeps him from wanting to cry. He is losing Phi.

"...I just wanted to make sure you were okay," he continues too sincerely, simply to say something. "I saw that photo, and I thought they were..." Well, what was a person supposed to think if they saw their under-aged friend in a cloud of smoke? "...But if you say they won't hurt you, that's enough. I'll leave it to them." There's a sense of finality to those words. Right now, he isn't a Gamemaker. It was someone else, a long time ago, who spoke that way.

It dawns on her that Sigma had honestly though she was in danger, as absurd as that seems from her perspective. These people were a little weird, sure, but she had never felt threatened by them. Not in the same way that she had sometimes felt threatened by the Nonary participants or the people in the Arena. They weren't competitors. But they weren't partners like her and Sigma were, either. She didn't trust them that explicitly. They were something in between. Friends, she might say, if that was a word she used with any frequency.

The way that Sigma talks leaves her unsettled. It sounds like a man saying his goodbyes. Like somehow he thinks this is it for them. Maybe that was partly her fault for laying into him so harshly. Part of her wonders if she should apologize, but it's out-voted by the part of her that doesn't want to acknowledge her feelings. "Will you knock it off? You're acting like you have to pass me off just because I spent an evening getting blazed with them."

It should go without saying that she takes offense to that sentiment on principle. He doesn't have the authority to "pass her off", Gamemaker or no; and her friendship and loyalty aren't as fickle as that. She's not going to throw him away for any of the people here.

Meulin watches the quick exchange of numbers from the couch, turned with her legs tucked up under her. Phi doesn't seem to be in the hurry the Gamemaker is but it doesn't matter. She gets swept along anyways, rolling her eyes all the while. Meulin almost offers her a place to sleep again, but she's at the door with Sigma and it's a little late to try to pull her back in anyways.

Instead, Meulin waves back to the disoriented Gamemaker and waits for the door to shut behing them. She gives it a five count before she crawls over the back of the couch to find Derek guarding Kurloz from--from Sigma? She blinks, tilting her head at them both. Quietly, she steps in and kisses them on the cheek, one after the other.

"She'll be okay. They're friends I think. I think. If what I've heard is true. Or something else. And he makes catpuns. And asked after District Four once."

She says that as if that solves all the issues. He makes catpuns. He can't be that bad.

Another person, even one just in this house, would hear "Happy Hunger Games" and think that the worst possible utterance that could be. Kurloz, however, is a Capitolite and one that registers such phrases like a click in his head, blanking his eyes and slapping a smile back on his face. He almost waves Sigma out for that, but is, perhaps for the best, still a little too grounded in the moment.

Especially when Derek is staring at him, using him to keep grounded. Some part of him worries for being caught but... caught with what? He's done nothing wrong.

Meulin breaks such reverie as she leans over to kiss him, which he meets part way be leaning to her, smiling true and animated at this. He turns to listen to her speak. She sounds assured but he is less certain. He's seen closer people do the worst.

But he is definitely going to remember cat-punning. He lifts a brow over it, smirking a Meulin.

You can't be friends with a Gamemaker, and the fact that he asked after District Four once only makes Derek mildly concerned - why does he want to know about District Four - but there's nothing any of them can do about it now.

Phi's choices are her own, and they've done all they can to make it clear that they support her. Were it Meulin or Anna or Kurloz, Derek wouldn't have let them leave, but were it anyone else, Derek probably wouldn't have even bothered protesting. If there's a part of him that's still worried, even now that she's gone, he does his best to shove it down.

Instead, he goes back to what he'd wanted to say to Kurloz earlier, and shoots him the smallest hint of a smirk.

"Should be a smart ass around you more often."

"He does, I swear! I did it first and he replied and it was a whole thing," And she's moved to throw her arms out in a gesture of emphasis, "He thought I was making fun of him." She nearly pouts. Don't smirk at her, it was the truth. She leans in against him and kisses his cheek once more. And so her head settles against his shoulder, watching Derek since he's the one who can speak between the two. However infrequent such occurences are.

"Wait--did I miss something?"

He believes his girl absolutely, but nevertheless he doesn't show it right away, just because he wants to see her dramatic elaborations as she does proceed to do. Especially when it earns him a kiss and her leaning against him. He looks on her so full of love.

Until Derek smirks at him. His eyes narrow and he's pouting again, reaching out to deliver a light whap to Derek's shoulder. Asshole. Could've got them all killed for that little stunt. Smiling as like he's pleased with himself.

(Somewhere inside, Kurloz thinks how nice it is to see a Derek happy enough to tease.)

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Boys, say you got a girl? Yes, true you got a man

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