thecapitol | You'd Be an Animal Too [Closed]

Who| Punchy and Holiday, Punchy and Topher
What| Punchy has guilt all up ins.
Where| The rooms of Holiday and Topher, respectively.
When| Post-Arena, maybe a week after
Warnings/Notes| Discussion of the Arena, probably swearing.

For a little while, the glitz and glam of the Capitol sweeps Punchy up, and he manages to shove all those messy feelings from the Arena entirely out of his mind. Spots of memory are buried in new clothes; cold sweats are drowned in booze; guilt is blasted away by flash photography and screens and the hounding of interviewers. It's a shallow life, but that's the glory of it - for a while, Punchy skates on the surface of what is, content in the vapidity of it all.

But eventually he falls through into the cold depths below, and that's what finds him checking the halls in the night. The Capitol's given him a legitimate 'superhero; costume, largely based on his original design, which they found colorful and flamboyant enough. They even gave him night-vision goggles, which he uses to wander the halls without flipping the lights on.

Two different District suites. He pauses at each door. He knows the occupants are alive, he checked that especially, but he hasn't faced them yet. And he's been working a long time on his apology, though it seems to have escaped his brain entirely.

He knocks.

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Punchy's at the door with a sheepish grin that doesn't hide that he looks very sad. Holiday doesn't look that much better than he does.

"Hey, Holiday." He adds a deliberate pause in between the words, just to remind her that he's following her request not to call her 'shawty' or 'honey' or whatever other name he'd give a lady. "You okay?"

Holiday paused for a moment when she realized who it was. Poor kid didn't seem to be holding up all that well, much like she was, and she couldn't blame him one bit.

Still, she couldn't help but appreciate that he would check on her. She smiled to him.

"I am." More or less. "What about you?"

"I'm aces. Been ridin' this hype wave like a board, you know?" He shrugs again. "Just been kinda rattlin' up in the membrane worried about you and Tophs. Glad you made it back."

"I'm glad you did, too." Holiday looks around for a moment, then back to him. "Don't get too sucked by these people, okay. Their adoration for us only runs skin deep." She doesn't want the kid hurt or disappointed. Holiday knows what these people think of them.

"And don't worry about any of us. We're all safe here. No one wants us gone for good." At least, not the Capitol. Not yet.

"Yeah, but, you know..." Punchy shrugs. In a way this is almost...disappointing? Maybe he'd been envisioning Holiday as needing him more than she did, and his inability to gallantly save her from her angst is harshing his style. "Doesn't mean it ain't jank on the spinal."

Holiday didn't want to need anyone here. The world was too harsh and unforgiving for that... but she would eventually.

"I know..." She allows a moment for a brief silence to pass between them, until she reaches out and hugs him.

Punchy's more than happy to hug her back, and he's got the big, sprawling sort of bear hug that could swallow a person. A hug that says 'I'm here for you'.

"So. You liking your pad here?"

Holiday gives him a big smile at the returned hug. "I don't suppose I can complain about the living accommodations too much." She was always going to miss home, though.

"What's it like, where you was at?" He hops uninvited onto her bed and sprawls all over it.

"It was... always busy. Not particularly great, but... I do miss it."

EVOs and junk running everywhere. It wasn't exactly fun but she'd do anything to get it back. "What about your home?"

"You's a doc, right? You know if you can fix me up with some herbal? For like, health and shit."

He's clearly evading the question about home. It's not a good story. It's boring and lame and the more he thinks about it, the more he'll have to wonder if there are people back there waiting for him.

She caught it and decided against bringing it up again. Instead, Holiday raised one of her brows in a joking manner. "I do hope you mean tea."

"Nah, dawg, I mean some bubonic chronic. A fatty. Some of the wacky tobacky." Punchy pauses as he finally translates her comment into disapproval. "Like I said. For medical reasons."

Wacky tobacky. As much as she liked Punchy and his overall attitude, she did silently pray that not all people his age from his world spoke like him.

"Uh-huh," she replied now with a frown. To be honest, wacky tobacky didn't sound all that bad of a stress reliever in a place like this considering what they were here for, but uh yeah no. "Even if I had connections, the answer is very much a no way. Nice try, though."

"Aww, don't be square, Holiday." He shakes his head. "Was worth a shot."

So much for his dreams of being Snoop Dogg. "You tried the food here yet?"

Oh no. She's a square as could be, buddy.

Holiday sighs, glad that's over, before sitting on her bed beside him. "I've tried the stuff they've given me, but I haven't really gone out somewhere. Have you?"

"Fo' shizz, I been flossin' up and down this 5, you dig?" What's the point of being a celebrity if you don't enjoy it? "It's all I ever wanted."

Holiday gave him a sad smile. Part of her wanted to beat it into him the situation they were in, but the rest of her relented against that idea. Focusing on things like that made people insane. "I'm glad you're enjoying it."

Punchy's smile in turn is oblivious. "I ain't the broodin' type, you know? Can't be wastin' shit on the downbeat. Glad you ain't either."

She is, though. Just acting like she's not. "You're right. There's no sense in brooding, especially here." She just can't help it.

You'd Be an Animal Too [Closed]

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