thecapitol | [You got to keep in the game]

Who: All mentors! And Avoxes alike.
What: The Hunger Games has started so it's time to watch. ~~and hope your tributes listened~~
Where: The Greenroom
When: The start of Arena 2

As the Game began, Haymitch was only half watching his screen. Once again, all of the mentors had been escorted to the Greenroom as the games started. He heard the ominous countdown, same as it was every year. Haunting almost. A sound Haymitch often wanted to forget.

He was frowning as he settled into on of the comfortable seats, looking up at the screens. Tony and Neha standing on their respective spots, as the seconds counted down. There were other tributes of course, but they were...District 12. He'd barely gotten to know Tony, who arrived only days before the Games, and to be honest, he hadn't been sober enough to get to know Neha.

And for the time being, he wasn't planning on being sober here either. As soon as an Avox approached him with a drink, he took it. Katniss and Peeta had to have gotten the swing of it by now. They were both intelligent young victors who hadn't lost their brain cells to drinking.

It was going to be another long session. He could feel it as he took a long hard drink from the mixed drink. Sure they didn't permanently die in these games. But watching them kill each other wasn't exactly rainbows and butterflies. Some of them knew each other. Some of them had no combat experience at all.

But this was what they had to do. Sit here, watched them be killed one by one and send them 'gifts' that would hopefully let them survive a minute more than the others.

Happy Hunger Games his ass.

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Finnick entered the Greenroom with a casual stroll. It would either be him, Mags, or Annie and he wasn't about to put Annie through this again. His eyes spotted the screens immediately and looked for his tributes, which weren't too hard to find and he was glad to see they were still alive.

There were other mentors all over the room, some mingling, others just watching the bloodbath. He was more attracted to the large comfortable chairs than to Haymitch, who he didn't realize was sitting there until he fell into a seat next to him. It was then only appropriate to get himself a drink from a passing server and sit with him as if they were merely watching a sports event.

"Hows Katniss doing with all of this starting up again?" he asked casually as if they were old friends. The reality as that he'd seen and known of Haymitch, at least particularly with the 74th Games' result, but found himself speaking to him on a rare occasion. Since it was rare that Haymitch was sober enough to really have a conversation with.

She looks up, across the room in a corner, at the sound of her name. She was still sitting in her chair, Peeta on the other side of her with his hand in hers, when she answers him.

"Better than them, at least." He knows who they are and if she has to elaborate she'll just go back to ignoring him and the rest of the room. If she was expected to be chipper and happy about all of this luxury while innocent children died, then the Capitol might as well kill her now.

"Oh hey there sunshine!" One of the gloomiest victors to ever grace the Capitol despite her crazed popularity. Of course had he not met Katniss prior to this he would have never addressed her in this manner. However this was the first time that Peeta had been around. Finnick nodded to the other victor, but focused on Katniss.

He didn't want to break to her the hard truth that despite what they had to sit through and watch, it would eventually have to in some way become bearable. It wasn't as if any of them had any control or influence in preventing the Games, so they just had to watch.

"Enjoying the show?" A sort of dry humor that victors shared about having to sit through the Games each year.

If this hadn't been a room with victors maybe she would have done better to put a more charismatic front up. Given that she didn't trust any of them as far as she could throw them beyond Haymitch and Peeta, she did make an attempt to smirk.

"Hey yourself. It's hard to enjoy reruns." Har har. She was catching on to the dry humor that came with having survived the carnage and bloodshed. It was still fresh for her, in her mind and in her bones even.

Well, son of a bitch.

True, he was fond of Ariadne. He was less fond of Ariadne killing his one promising tribute right out of the gate.

Let's face it, the other had had the sense to book it away from the cornucopia but he wasn't someone Elias was going to put a lot of hope on.

Then again, there had been bigger surprises.

For now he sank into a chair, holding up his hand for a drink. Hopefully a strong one.

The drink, Capitol-complicated as it was, might have tasted more familiar than most to Haymitch. Darius, despite the complications involved in even thinking of anything as illegal as Ripper's contraband alcohol, had found the closest approximation he could.

It was a bit unexpected to be honest. What he was expecting, was it to be too fruity and too frilly for what he needed. So when he took the first, it took all he had in him to keep his dignity and not make a sound.

Not bad.

Haymitch looks to the Avox who handed him a drink, trying to bring as little attention to the situation as possible. They weren't supposed to know, nor acknowledge the Avox's serving them; doing so could get both parties in trouble. He knew who this was though. Even through the make up and forced 'submission' of the Capitol, he'd known this man for a few years, and he'd be damned if he wasn't going to try and communicate with him.

"So," Haymitch started, a bit awkward as he straightened up, "You should give my compliments to whoever made this. Tastes like home."

Straightening himself from the usual slight bow, Darius met his eyes, just for a moment. Under the sheen of white makeup, the corners of his mouth tightened, just the ghost of a smile. It didn't reach his eyes - not with what was going on in those screens, all around them both. He looked at the nearest, seeking out the tributes assigned to Twelve, and let his brows flick upwards, just very briefly. How were they doing?

Haymitch caught the slight raise of his brow and spoke lowly. Loud enough for Darius to catch, but soft enough that any unwanted eaves-droppers might think he was talking to himself.

"None of ours are dead yet. Good thing too. Maybe we actually have a shot at winning again."

Haymitch wasn't relatively attached to any of the District 12...like many other games. But now the President had made the games mean something again. Rations to the new champion's district until the next arena started. Less people starving for a week.

The avox blinked, a deliberate lowering of his eyes as clear as any nod, and held his empty drinks tray to his chest, arms crossed across it. He had even less attachment to the new tributes than Haymitch, but was grateful for the update. With a more formal bow, he withdrew, fading to the back of the room to wait for any of his assigned targets to need anything more.

She sits on the soft cushioned sofa draped in golds and pale greens; gold lips, green eyes and her unnaturally long hair piled on top of her head in loose curls. It makes her nigh unrecognizable as Commander Alison J Shepard of the SR2 Normandy who is more used to her armor and a pair of combat boots than anything else. She sits, and wonders if she can ever be that woman again.

Her eyes are still sharp as ever though, and when she sees the tributes rise up out of their tubes, she knows she's been told to pay attention to Donatello; to Bao Yu; to Jill. But all she can see is Kaidan rise up and she's furious that....

Wait.

"What the hell is this?!" she literally shouts, as she stands up and points at the screen, forgetting entirely that she'd had a glass in her hand at the time and that she is in a room full of strangers. "What is she doing out there!?"

It isn't just Kaidan in the Arena this time.

Somehow, they gotten hold of Tali, too.

Katniss turns to look at the new girl. She'd won this past games. It felt like they'd been here hours already and yet she was fairly sure not that much time had passed since it began.

"The Capitol has to have it's fresh meat, you know?" She'd feel sorry that the girl has to watch this having just lived it but Katniss knew better. Everyone was an enemy except the ones she could trust.

So, she just sits, staring at the new girl in silence and lays her head to rest against Peeta's arm which is draped around her like a protective bubble. Sometimes that line between pretend and reality was blurred but his comfort was welcome.

If Katniss was of less stability, she'd probably be hiding out instead of sitting in this room. It also didn't help that she was probably required to be here. Half of her wished she'd take a drink, like Haymitch, but their tributes deserved two sober mentors not one. So she sits and watches, Peeta not far from her side.

The count down began and she tensed up, waiting for the carnage and the canon fire. It hadn't been long ago she had been in that arena and with Peeta. Katniss puts a hand to her cheek, leaning on her palm with her elbow to the arm of the chair, feigning boredom. In reality she's remembering the ringing sounds of the mines that went off, destroying the Career's food. She's also remembering flashes of Rue, and the berries, the sounds of canon fire and the snarling and snapping jaws of mutts.

[You got to keep in the game]

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Little bit later in the game.

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not late tagging or anything.

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