[002] i wonder when the night will reach its end [OPEN]

[amourtician]

Who| Jay and YOU! Special invitation extended to Insomniacs Anonymous
What| Jay has insomnia and is stargazing. Feel free to bug him.
Where| the park
When| now-ish, at night
Warnings/Notes| Jay's been drinking again, so things to do with alcohol. Other warnings will come if needed.

Jays lost track of how long he's been awake and he's just now starting to feel tiredness nibbling on the edges of his brain. He thinks he might be approaching twenty hours awake, but he can't be sure -- he never got into the habit of carrying a pocketwatch, back home, and he hasn't had a chance to find one he likes in the Capitol (he's as picky as he is vain, which is inhumanly so). He's more than a little drunk, too, but it doesn't seem to be making him sleepy at all (because, unknown to him, the last think he drank was the Capitol equivalent of a vodka with Red Bull and the caffeine's doing its job).

Right now, he's back in the park, somewhere towards the heart of it. He's lying on his back in the middle of a rosebush -- one mercifully genetically modified to be free of thorns. He thinks it's an awful waste of a perfectly good and deeply metaphoric plant. He also thinks the roses -- neon pink with black leopard spots -- are the tackiest thing he's seen in the Capitol, which is saying something, especially given the amount of mirrors he passes every day.

He's stargazing, trying idly to find familiar patterns in the unfamiliar sky above. He found a distorted version of the Fiery Eye and something that looks like an upsidedown Cradle of Rivers and he feels almost comforted, in an absurd way. The alcohol and the hours spent with his stylist, buried in fabric samples and haute couture magazines and the endless lure of the televisions have buried homesickness, but not very well or very deep. It's starting to claw its way back to the surface. He misses Mara. He misses the bookshop. He misses Raimut, though he'd never admit how much relief he feels upon being away from him.

Absurdly, he misses his twin most of all. She always was everything he never could be and he admits, grudgingly and only to himself, that being athletic and brutal would be far more useful here than being beautiful and clever.

While Jay's trying to prevent his mood from swinging to "maudlin", what are you doing?

Comments

[carnagecarnival]

There are still too many around for him to be comfortable without clubs in hand. Especially not without the weight and tide of the voodoo. He finds himself flexing his fingers often, as if they'll suddenly be there in his grasp. They stripped him of his armor, of everything, but his claws and the horns on his head.

He can't hear the shore either. He's not sure whether he's bothered by that too or not.

He wanders the park now simply because there are less people in it than anywhere else, no wide-eyed aliens to gawk at him without even fearing him, which had already gotten old. It's dark in the park, of course, but he can see everything much better for it. Including Jay lying down in a bush. The Initiate walks up to and leans over him, his long hair hanging as he stares down and says, "The fuck are you doing?"

[amourtician]

Jay, finding that the sky has been replaced with the face of a scowling troll, smiles as sunnily as he can manage. He's not exactly displeased to see the Initiate. A brute he may be, but he's a fascinating one. And he's certainly exotic.

"I'm stargazing, my dove," he says. "I'm nostalgic for the skies of my own world. I'm also rather drunk and being upright is a bother. Would you like to join me? We could make up names for constellations!"

[carnagecarnival]

He raises his brows at Jay, then, looks up and scans the park over. There isn't really much here he can't take, he's certain, and he's nearing that point where he'd rather something did jump out so he'd have excuse to tear it or them apart-- he never needed excuse for that on Alternia. He never needed to wait. He even had better things to do, sometimes.

Like watch an empty horizon.

He settles down, cross-legged by Jay's side. "AND WHAT does he see in different motherfucking skies?"

[amourtician]

"Different stars, in familiar shapes," Jay says, dreamily, then points up and traces a line of stars. "I see something resembling the Celestial Serpent -- see, the kite-shaped thing is its head and that line is the tail ... oh."

He stops and frowns, studying what had seemed, two minutes ago, to be a perfect transplant of one of the more prominent constellations of Mir.

"I suppose we can ignore the triangle stuck to the tail."

[carnagecarnival]

He squints and tries to follow Jay's line of sight to where he's pointing, not entirely sure he's seeing this so called Celestial Serpent. And then Jay gives that "oh" and he snorts.

"DOWNS HIMSELF IN THE MOTHERFUCKING SOPORIFICS AND MEANS TO SEE CLEAR. Surprised at he can pick it out to find fault. COULD'VE SAID NOTHING and what would an Initiate have known?" He peers up again. "Took hatchet to tail, they did. BEAST UP AND SPLIT TWO WAYS but not enough onto make it motherfucking twin."

[knifewithnoname]

Pruna is someone else that can't sleep, not really from insomnia but instead out of habit. Ever since she can remember she has gone to bed after evening chores, to be woken in the early morning for training in the arts of darkness or more frequently lately missions.

The concept of sleeping through an entire night is one as alien to her as ice cream and she often finds herself waking for a few hours. The arena didn't help in that regard.

Tonight she tried to see if she could sneak out, it was disappointingly easy. She wandered the park, sneaking just out of habit, and for practice.

She saw the figure in the bush and sneaked closer, watching from behind a tree.

[amourtician]

Jay doesn't notice Pruna, but he sits up to stretch his back and pick some twigs and petals out of his dreadlocks. He starts whistling something through his teeth -- it's a half-remembered traditional Tulun song. He keeps losing his place and starting over.

He looks entirely harmless. And also drunk.

[knifewithnoname]

Pruna's used to drunk people, having grown up in an inn and she sneaks closer. She isn't sure if this was a tribute or a someone from the city, she thought maybe the latter because of the hair.

She skipped a bit closer, and closer still. Making it into an exercise, how far she could get before he noticed her.

Again it was disappointingly easy and soon she was right behind him. She could see why they needed to send other people into the arenas, they were all stupid and useless here.

"You really should be paying more attention to your surroundings." She told him in a lecturing tone.

[amourtician]

Jay is too drunk to overreact. He merely pulls an exasperated face at Pruna. She's a tiny kid. What does she know?

"Why, dearest? It's not like there are bears here or something. Well, there might be tame ones. You know, in the homes of Capitol citizens. They seem like the type to keep pet bears. But, ah. That's ... besides the point."

He grins, akwardly, and blushes, aware that he's rambling. "Your concern is touching, but I'm not sure I'm in any danger, right now."

[knifewithnoname]

She wrinkles her nose, "Well I hope their bears do be eating them." Serve them right, she thought he was right though. They did seem the type, like how they kidnapped people and forced them to kill but then brought them here to live and gave them nice food in the meantime. Trusting that they wouldn't turn round and kill them.

He was mostly stupid though, she rolled her eyes at him. "I can be seeing three... no four ways I could be killing you now, and if I did be actually wanting to be killing you and did be having a knife I can be seeing ten more. You could be being in a lot of danger."

Because surely even a place such as this had assassin's, or cut throats and street thieves.

[buildingreality]

Ariadne wasn't entirely proud of it, but the fact remained that she wasn't that familiar with most of her Tributes. They kept rotating in and out; every time she blinked, she had a new one, or someone else had disappeared, and she had no idea what had happened to them.

Well, that was a lie. She knew what happened to them: the Capitol happened to them. That much was obvious. What she could do about it was unknown, if there was anything to be done at all. She tried not to worry about it too much, but there were the odd stresses of her new 'job' that got to her. She was outside for roughly the same reasons as Jay, though she wasn't drunk. Ariadne didn't need alcohol to keep her up at night in cases like this.

She wasn't looking out for anyone - just watching the periphery in case - but happened to stumble upon someone all the same. The roses weren't what caught her eye, but the Tribute laying in them. A frown tugged her brow, and she drew to a stop, watching him for a moment before glancing up to follow his gaze.

"Are you all right?"

[amourtician]

"Huh? Oh, I'm splendid, darling, especially considering the circumstances," Jay says, grinning up at her. He recognises her, vaguely -- he hasn't exactly been training or paying attention to the people who are supposed to prepare him for the Arenas. But the alcohol has made him gregarious and chatty.

"I'm doing the only thing that lifts people out of the gutter," he says, rather self-importantly, and points up at the stars. "Your night skies are wonderful, dear."

[buildingreality]

She tipped her head to one side a little bit, curious as she watched him and his reactions, the way he spoke to her. If she was bothered by not being entirely recognised, it didn't show; truthfully, she wasn't bothered by it at all. Still, a chatty Tribute was better than a depressed, rebellious one.

"They're not mine," she pointed out idly, following his indication up to the stars before glancing back down to him. "Alcohol's a depressant; I'm not sure that it's going to help you get out of the gutter. Especially not in the literal sense."

[amourtician]

"Mmmmm, well, dear," Jay said, with a rather patronising, indulgent smile "literally, I've got no hope of getting out. Metaphorically, though? I can make myself feel as though I'm among the stars."

He wondered if he should try to explain he's quoting a favoured poet of his, but decided against it. It didn't seem like a topic that would lead anywhere but to more drunk rambling and misunderstandings.

"And of course the stars are yours," he added, after a little thought. "They're everyone's, darling. One of the few things the haves can't take away from the have-nots. Well. Yet, anyway."

[buildingreality]

Quite sure that none of the conversations she could possibly have with him were going to go nowhere fast - or at least in apparently condescending circles - Ariadne made a note to avoid further ones if she could help it.

"Of course," she agreed mildly, opting to humour him instead of questioning it like she might have otherwise.

"Give it time. I'm sure the Capitol will manage to take them away. Replace them with an artificial sky, artificial constellations."

[alldeduction]

Sherlock wasn't sleeping.

Nightmares hadn't really been something that had interjected upon his life in decades - not since he was a child, at least - but here, in this place, they had returned with force. So though he slept little in the regular course of things, here in the Capitol he was sleeping even less.

Thus it was that he wandered, often aimlessly, without John at his side and far enough away from the Tribute tower as he could manage.

He sees the feet, first.

His first thought is vagrant, but he knows that is wrong - there are no vagrants here in the capitol. So he walks over to take a closer look.

[amourtician]

Jay hears footsteps and sits up. He grins at Sherlock. He doesn't quite recognise him, beyond "fellow tribute". He can't even remember his district association.

"Can't sleep either, darling?" he chirps. "Good thing it's a nice night for a walk!"

[alldeduction]

"Generally I don't find bushes a viable alternative to traditional bedding," Sherlock said, leaning over the bush so he could see Jay fully. Obviously a tribute. "Or conducive to walking, for that matter."

[amourtician]

"This one is surprisingly comfortable, dearest," Jay says, grinning up at Sherlock. "And I was walking. I'm resting now. My species does not run indefinitely, you know. I mean, I don't know about yours. Yours might."

Sherlock looks mostly human to Jay, though the lack of any strong indicators of spirit heritage in every other human Tribute is starting to get to him. Is he surrounded by a solid wall of Flesh, here? What a nasty, stifling thought.

[alldeduction]

It's disconcerting, the inhumaness, but Sherlock is beginning to get used to it (Jay at least isn't a giant turtle), so he doesn't comment or bat an eye. He simply makes mental notes.

"Indefinitely? No. It doesn't appear your species has a much higher tolerance for alcohol, either," he observed. A child's play observation, perhaps, but an apt one.

[vissernone]

They even had to ruin roses, Eva thinks. She's grown up with the keen knowledge that Panem likes to tamper with biology, that they should even take pride in it, but she also grew up bitter about it. The genetic fiddling that supposedly meant the crops would grow hardier usually meant that her District's output quota was expected to be higher every year. The 'efficient' measures so often indicated that she and her family were to work harder, not less. And then there were all the years that the experiments didn't take, and the crops died anyway.

It's been decades and she's never forgotten the sunstrokes, the aching shoulders, the bloody hands, the way everyone over the age of thirty hobbled from backs gone bad from lifting heavy weight. She just never talks about it anymore. She rarely talks about District 9 at all, since everything she's loved there has been wiped away.

She stops by a bush and picks a flower, examining it with some distaste. She starts tearing petals apart one by one, picking away the black leopard spots and leaving tattered pieces of pink, as if she's trying to rectify it. It gives her something to do with her hands; her mangled lips and cuticles speak to what her fingernails do when they aren't shredding flowers.

She stops when she notices a foot poking out of the bush. She raises an eyebrow and leans over, finding herself towering over a Tribute in her heels and elegantly feathered dress.

"It's probably not wise to sleep here, unless you want it on the front page of the paper when someone with a camera phone finds you here."

[amourtician]

"All publicity is good publicity, darling," Jay drawls, sitting up. He notices the destroyed rose in Eva's hand and raises at eyebrow at her. "Taking your anger out on innocent flowers? Seems a bit cruel. That rose didn't do anything to you. Or to anyone else. It doesn't even have thorns."

[vissernone]

Eva's brow twitches up. "Cliched quips about the media are usually dispensed by people who haven't spent their lives navigating it. I'd take my advice before I take yours."

She tosses the flower aside. "I'll be sure to send a letter of apology to the gardener."

[amourtician]

"This place probably has more than one," Jay says, choosing to ignore the first part of her statement. "You'll have to be awfully specific if you want to reach the right one."

He looks up at Eva, his smile lopsided and drunk. "Who are you, anyway, darling? I've seen you around the Training Centre, but you look like neither a Stylist nor an Escort."

[vissernone]

"I'm a Victor." She holds a hand out to help him up. "Not a 'darling', and don't call me that again unless you want to never make it to the Arena."