thecapitol | whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

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whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

Who| Molotov, Black Tom and open
What| A wedding reception for the ages
Where| A private estate
When| Between the D7 and D1 battles
Warnings/Notes| General assholery, excessive and gaudy displays of wealth, literal fountains of alcohol, two terrible people who genuinely love each other

The ceremony was small and private, as far as guests went -- you probably weren't invited. The Capitol even granted them a few moments without cameras or recorders for their vows. Tom and Molotov were married at dusk in a room of flowers, a room that's been made completely off-limits until the happy couple themselves are far from it. Once the party begins, it holds the dance floor, illuminated by thousands of tiny fairy lights that shine from inside the greenery, and even the floor is made of flowers, kept pristine and dance-friendly with a layer of plexiglass atop them.

Two bengal tigers in white flower crowns and neck wreaths are waiting to welcome you to the area designated for cocktails, and while the tigers lie mostly still on their perches placed at either side of the door, they do occasionally let out a growl or roar, just for show. The music is quieter here, to accommodate mingling, and while the bar does have practically every variety of beverage ever created, there's a sign to highlight the carefully crafted signature cocktails for the couple:

Permafrost
vodka, elderflower liqueur, white cranberry and lime juice, garnished with an orchid and edible gold flecks

The Barrington
whiskey, simple syrup, and lemon juice, garnished with a sprig of fresh mint and an emerald at the bottom of the glass

Killer Love
champagne, cognac, orange liqueur and a candied hibiscus blossom cradling a diamond

The massive dining area is indoors, though one could be forgiven for thinking they've walked outside -- a domed glass ceiling shows the sky above (which has been artificially enhanced through the glass to include gorgeous starry heavens). Trees and flowers seem to grow from the tables, glowing from the light of soft LEDs in glass orbs amongst the branches. Some of the bulbs contain butterflies instead, white and fluttering around, providing a bit of movement.

There doesn't seem to be a menu; instead, chefs man at least twenty different specialty stations, ready to make custom versions of everything from risotto to grilled cheese, pizza to lobsters. There's an entire table devoted to caviar, another just for varieties of bread and butter. One chef is happy to prepare you a hearty stack of waffles, should you wish.

Though there is one cake that is, obviously and undoubtedly, the main cake, there are several dozen other, smaller ones dotting tables around the room, each with a different look, flavor and decoration.

Towards the end of the party, well after midnight, guests are ushered outside for the send-off. As Tom and Molotov exit, fifty thousand white and gold balloons are released into the sky above them, and guests are urged to wave their sparklers for good luck and congratulations. They leave in a sleek black coupe, complete with custom plates that read CASSIDY.

The music keeps playing until dawn.

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"It sounds exhausting," Wesker summarily replied, in his typically dry murmur. However... "And this common knowledge? Or were you privy to the information as a matter of your occupation?"

In his world, everything needed to be done behind turned backs and in the dark, under the shadow of cold hard cash. A part of him always admired the Capitol for at making its people see experimentation - with all its failures and growths - as the necessity it was.

Molotov has to think about it for a moment, the answer to his question. In truth, she's been involved with the weird, shady side of the world for long enough that she's become detached from the average joe.

"I can't say to what extent these things are common knowledge. But you have to understand, in my world, these are career paths, becoming a superhero or supervillain or superscientist. Everyone knows that becoming... mutated in this way, with powers or something, it's not exactly rare. There are unions, of sorts, for all of them, job fairs for henchmen and sidekicks, everything."

She takes another sip of her drink, and it's like she's explaining that her world has doctors and teachers.

"Fascinating."

He leaned back for a moment, fork and knife hovering over the plate as he tried to envision what a world like that would have been like for him. How much simpler it would have been to get where he'd desired.

If not any less messy, by Molotov's description.

"You, however... you were more born to it? Were you not?"

Details. Needless, perhaps, but one never knew. So he remembered them all.

"In a way. My life only peripherally crosses over into the extremes of the superscience racket, and even dealing with the OSI and the Guild, I don't really hit the heaviest things. My ex was a high ranking Guild member, but he was just... big. Totally normal otherwise." She thinks about other weirdos she's met. "Let's see, the Sovereign is a shapeshifter, usually looks like David Bowie. There's an old man with two heads, they sewed the second one on to save him. Truckules is partially a truck. On the heroes side, the big name is Captain Sunshine, of course. He can fly, solar-powered. Also a pedophile."

She polishes off her drink, then shakes her head a little. "But yes, sort of. My father was KGB, and so was I, he was my original handler. I work for the OSI now, but I did freelance work for, god, more than twenty years."

Wesker had seen, created (become) wildly unnatural things, and believed himself to be fairly unflappable as far as strange went. But even he had to admit that was a downright bizarre list.

"I was born to Umbrella," he said, returning to the steak. "But for all the time and effort I spent, I don't find myself missing it."

He mopped blood with a neat cut of meat, speared on the end of his fork.

"Do you?"

Her mouth twists a little, and she looks down at her empty glass.

"I miss working with my father. I miss the Party. But I don't miss working for the government, no. I wouldn't have gone back to it if they were the ones setting the terms." Molotov shrugs, and for a moment, wonders how long she can trust Hunter to keep up his end of the deal. She doesn't feel like it's wrong to have backup plans for that.

"Why don't you miss it? If it was your whole life?"

"Umbrella was dying," he said flatly. If there was any remorse or grief to be felt, he didn't show it. "It had lasted longer than the rest of the world proper, but the consumption was starting. Eating itself from the inside. I had taken steps..."

Such plans. Everything, finally, beginning to fall into place - if he could have brought it back under his control....

"But even had I succeeded, it would have been years before the planet would even begin to be viable."

"Then what were your back-up plans? With everything dying, what's left for you?"

She settles back in her chair, peering at him, head cocked. Molotov's been making her own world for more than two decades, sitting comfortably atop her mountain of competitors and destroying anyone who tries to plant their own flag. Spinning webs of lies, attacking those who would break her threads. Doing exactly as she pleases.

"Are you one of the people who doesn't have much of a world to return to?"

His mouth curled, a sharp, humorless twist of his lips.

"That was the backup." All the years wasted chasing Project Alice, of chasing the cure?

It wasn't a memory he enjoyed dwelling on.

"Certainly not one worth returning to, not when Panem stands strong before us. Such potential. So much opportunity...."

Her eye narrows slightly, and she tilts her head more. "How long would you have lasted in a dead world?" she asks, curious more than anything else. "Three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food. What three does your particular need fall under?"

An Avox drops off another drink, and she watches it walk away before she keeps talking. "Yes. Panem is quite a land of plenty, though I suppose they do like to hammer that point home. Tell me, Mr. Wesker, what future do you see for yourself here? You must have planned extensively, if you don't expect to return to your home."

"I could have subsisted. There were other facilities, shuttered, forgotten. And T - for all her proclivities - isn't particular when it comes to consumption." The loss of Umbrella Prime would have been a blow, if his plot for Alice had failed, but only in the sense of convenience. Of expedience. The traditional cloning process was tedious, but not difficult with the right equipment. "But I don't care much for the taste of recycled air."

And what would be the point? To rule over a land of nothing?

He had clawed his way to the top for a reason.

The cut of meat grew smaller, Wesker eating steadily, leaving only the pool of blood behind. As an Avox passed, he requested a clean, empty, glass.

"I meant what I said, Mrs. Cocktease. Panem could surpass even my world, if it can get out of its own way. I hope to help it achieve that."

Well, if Molotov's world is correct, cloning is super easy, because basically the dumbest man she's ever met knows how to do it. Granted, he's not great at it (the clones keep managing to end up... kind of dead), but that could also be a genetic thing. The stupidity.

The Avox brings Wesker his glass, and again, Molotov waits until it's gone before she speaks. "High ambitions. I'm assuming you hope to ascend to the role of... vice president?" Her voice is so casual, and they both know she's talking for the cameras, the microphones, the fact that to phrase it any other way would be to risk both of their places in this strange society. "I have thought that perhaps they might like to expand the government a bit, after all of this mess."

His mouth twitched, as if amused by the very possibility.

"I do miss my old office," he said, just as easily, despite the fact it was technically incorrect. His had been distinctly more oval shaped.... "But I would never presume to speak for the people."

He finished the meat and pulled the empty glass close, neatly tipping up his plate and draining the remaining juice and blood into the latter.

"If they should call upon me, I would of course serve. But if not, I have many talents."

"Don't we all," she says, a bit dryly, and raises her glass slightly to him, as if in a toast. She doesn't voice the fact that his talents mostly lie locked away by the Capitol, that so many of the former Tributes' do. She feels better, warm inside, to remind herself of the fact that no part of what she is can be taken away by a chip inside her, that she will always be a predator while the others become tame and complacent and caged. Idly, she has a vague regret that she never shared an Arena with Wesker, wonders what could have happened.

When they are all on equal footing, she is the one that rises above all the others. She wants to reassert that fact as often as possible.

"I expect that the military will begin relying on all of our talents sooner rather than later. It's like keeping wolves on chains while sending the miniature poodles to fight the battle."

He didn't dignify the thinly-veiled innuendo with a verbal response, but there was a small breath, not quite a snort, before he was lifting his glass, blood swirling thickly in the bottom.

It wasn't ego, to know what one was capable of.

And he was capable of a great deal.

"The Capitol knows what it has, perhaps they're merely being indulgent. Soothing a few ruffled feathers, and bruised egos. Letting them cut their teeth, before bringing this nonsense to an end."

She tilts her head in consideration, swallowing the sip of her drink she's taken. A tendril of hair falls down along her neck as she nods, though, again, she has opinions on that line of thought that she simply chooses not to voice.

"It's possible," she acquiesces. "I always do tend to expect efficiency out the last people that I should. A bad habit left over from the old days, I suppose, when it was important to do things quickly. If there's a surplus of anything here in Panem, it is time."

Molotov chuckles, though the humor is cold. "War is entertainment to be consumed, in its own way."

"Is it truly a victory if it goes unwitnessed?" Wesker asked with the same tone as someone asking if a falling tree made a noise in an empty forest. The tone of someone who knew what a dumb question it was. "And without the Games there is so little on television anymore."

"Anything is a victory if you report it as one."

There's some acerbic laughter hidden in her voice, from so many levels that she can't even pinpoint them all. She's a soldier and a member of the media expected to report on the war, positives only. She's from the Soviet Union, of all places in the universe, a former member of the KGB; propaganda and lying might as well be part of her DNA at this point.

Her eyebrow arches slightly when she smirks. "Have you seen their soap operas? This city knows how to make a masterpiece."

"How lucky they are to have you, from the frontline to the newsroom, a true first person perspective. Perhaps they'll provide you your own program now." He sipped from his new glass, blood sliding up to the rim, leaving a thick stain behind.

He offered her a smirk.

"I prefer their gameshows, but I might tune in for that."

She smiles and tilts her head, finishing her second drink. "They've already offered me Panem Nightly if I want to keep it. But we'll have to see. Who knows, maybe I'll wind up wanting to just be a homemaker."

The thought alone makes her laugh. She's never been stay-at-home material; she needs to go out and occupy herself. Preferably with battle of some sort.

"I like the one where they see who can last longer on a date with a Districter," she says, standing up slowly and smoothing her dress out. "But it seems I have some poor Capitolites to save from my husband's stories. Have a wonderful evening, Mr. Wesker, let us know if you need anything. And come to dinner sometime soon."

The comment drew a sharp smile from Wesker as well. Whatever his thoughts otherwise, whatever might happen, he sincerely doubted that particular future.

When she stood, he offered her a small toast with his homemade cocktail, and a little dip of his head.

"Congratulations again, and do give my best to Tom."

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whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

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