A rooftop meeting

[knottherapy]

WHO| Finnick and Max
WHAT| Not a suspicious meeting at all...
WHEN| The night after this
WHERE| Roof of the training center
WARNING/NOTES| None


Finnick was cleaned up and dressed in a sleek black suit waiting for Max to arrive with the Avox he had sent to fetch her. This Avox brought a note from a "prospective sponsor" that any mentor, if they saw said note, would support the tribute seeing. As for the location, Finnick chose the roof of the training center building - a place still very view victors knew was accessible and unmonitored. It wasn't far so she didn't need to be escorted to the other end of town, she only needed the right Avox to show her the way. It was also difficult to get on other floors normally since they were well watched.

Sure, Finnick Odair being seen with any woman around the Capitol would be "expected." Now that woman being another district's tribute could cause a scandal so he was careful to have had their meeting in the bar be the only time they were seen speaking openly in public. So Finnick was careful and made his way to the roof an hour before sending for Max.

He needed that time to think. Why was he meeting up with another district's tribute? He definitely had yet to trust her so much of their meeting would be a give and take situation trying to feel each other out. Even if they didn't get far with the discussion regarding the reality behind the fancy lights and glamor of the Capitol, he would at least be able to feel out the sort of person she could be in the arena and use that to his advantage.

Comments

[x5452]

"I would think maintaining a public face and supporting the status quo when it involves having to kill people to stay alive and then being everybody's poster boy afterward while trying to keep a private life is pretty damn complicated." Max replied unrepentantly.

She waits a few moments before sipping her wine. "You're clever. People don't think about that first. They probably see the cheekbones and the ass and the biceps and turn into drooling idiots. If I didn't know my own, I'd suspect you of being an X5, you're so pretty. I bet you use that to your advantage all the time."

"But that's beside the point. Is anybody doing anything about it? I can't imagine anyone putting up with this for long...but then this the seventy-something-ith games? Yeah. Crazy."

[knottherapy]

"Thank you, I love to hear my life spread out like that." His eyebrows bounced with his sarcasm as he drank some more.

"So there are more of me?" He asked watching her. "Explains why you never turned into a drooling idiot." He assumed she would further explain what this X5 thing was, but it also was pretty easy to figure out through context.

"Depends, do you want to be one of those people doing something about it when you only just got here?" He asks her pouring himself some more wine. He'll need it to have this conversation. "These are dangerous questions, you know. Do you know the history of the Games? They started with a rebellion against the Capitol."

[x5452]

"Not so much more of you, but more of me. People like me."

She looks around. "Well. I'm here. I may not have time, but I'd like to know what's what. If I win, especially." She eyes him. "What happens to winners, anyway? Big party, hurrah, and you get to go home?"

[knottherapy]

"And what are people like you like?" He studies her. She does come from an entirely different world so they may be speaking a different language without even knowing it. He couldn't be too careful. "Attractive and cautious is a given."

"As far as we know from one of these New Games, you don't have to go back in. You become a mentor like the rest of us. So congratulations, you just killed two dozen kids and now you don't have to do it again. However going home? That doesn't seem like an option whether you win or not." Not from what he had been witnessing. Rather than sending anyone home, they just were bringing more people there.

[x5452]

Not going home.

Max refused to believe it. She couldn't believe it, everything she's planned to do is built around the idea of being able to go home.

It took a few seconds until Max finally decided to compartmentalize it and deal with it later.

"People like me are a genetic cocktail of the best humanity has to offer, with just a dash of feline DNA." She grins, her expression daring him to believe it.

Of course, there was a teenage mutant ninja turtle walking around, so it might not be that difficult.

[knottherapy]

Finnick still studied her as she spoke. "So you were created to be perfect? With a dash of cat in you." At the rate the new tributes were arriving he was up to believing anything. However in Panem she would be viewed as a muttation- something that is greatly frowned upon. "Best keep that to yourself. It just sounds like...cheating somehow."

He drank some more wine, "So you can fight then? Assuming you're in perfect shape." His eyes looked her up and down. "Which you appear to be."

[x5452]

"A perfect something." she said, and for a moment, there's evident bitterness, but then chuckles, shaking her head. "It is cheating, but then I didn't ask to be born." She shrugged resignly, but then chuckled, noting, "You're worried about me and unfair, have you seen some of the other Tributes?"

She cocked her head a moment, eyeing him. "We're getting off topic. I want to know more about what if anything anyone is doing about the state of this place. All you're looking to do is get intel for your Tributes. I can appreciate the strategic effort, but you don't think I wouldn't through it, would you?"

[knottherapy]

Finnick nodded to her question, "I certainly know my own, as well as those who are going in for a second time. There is quite the variety." She wasn't cheating by being there, but it sure did make things interesting. "You just seem to be able to hide it better than others. Your skill that is."

So she noticed- he had been making some small talk for the sake of getting a feel for Max. If she could be trusted or not. "There has been whispers about things, yes, but nothing for sure." He spoke more into his glass as he drank than anything. "Of course I want intel, but ultimately the better tribute will win."

"Why are you so curious about the state of Panem? You may or may not stay here much longer based on what the Capitol decides to do with you." Death was an option.

[x5452]

"If I die, it won't matter anyway. But if I win...and I won't lie, I want to stay alive - then maybe there's a way to use whatever coin so to speak that it wins me besides my life. So yeah, the state of the place I may be stuck in, if not forever, then for a concievably long time interests me."

[knottherapy]

"Sure, but don't come in thinking you can save it." He didn't want her to get her tongue cut out or worse. Finnick looked at her very seriously now as he spoke, "You don't know the force you're messing with. Often consequences don't effect your life. They effect everyone's."

[x5452]

"Don't you just hate it when people talk to you like they think you don't know from anything about consequences?" Max remarks casually. "Yeah, I know I hate that."


Looking out over the city again, she repeats as if quoting (which she is), "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." She turns her gaze toward him.

"Are you a good man, Finnick Odair?"

[knottherapy]

Being mocked, as he saw it, irked Finnick. "Oh yeah, hate that."

Her quote was inspiring, he would give her that, however he was still irritated from her previous comment. "I try to be considering the circumstances." She was pushing pretty hard for him to seemingly give in, it made him suspicious. "Who else have you spoken to about these...thoughts?"

[x5452]

"Well, I printed them out in pamphlets and handed them out st the front of the building." Max looked at him with widely set eyes and asked in a faux naive voice, "That's okay, right?"

Yes, she is making fun of him. But shortly she shakes her head. "Sorry. I'd get it if there we just a dozen people who a whole lot of others were keeping down, but it's a handful keeping the masses down, and I don't understand that. Whatever, though." She flashes him a smile, too-wide and full of teeth. "Don't worry, Cheekbones. I'll probably die in the arena. And then you can breathe easy."

[knottherapy]

He cracks a smile at her sarcasm. Her attitude had been snarky, but nothing worse than Johanna Mason's attitude.

"I don't want to see you die in the arena." He clarifies as if its needed. "There is a group of interested people, larger than I can say. Its just strange to find a tribute from another world interested in the manner. You need to give people a reason to trust you, Miss Feline DNA." He can dish out nick names too.

[x5452]

Max rolled her eyes slightly and said, "I'm sure you don't want anyone to die, and yet here you are attempting to gain tactical advantage for your tributes. There's nothing I can say to make you trust me - " she pauses and peers at him.

"Scratch that. There probably is, but the thing about that is that it gives you intel for your tributes. So I guess you just gotta wait and see if I wind up as a corpse or as a victor to find out The Sad Sack Story of Max Guevara."

[knottherapy]

"Your mentors are out there doing the same for you," He added to his argument. "But no, there probably isn't anything right now you can say."

"The Sad Sack Story of Max Guevara?" He cocked an eyebrow, looking at her as if he weren't entirely impressed. "You have a story that will convince me to trust you?"

Finnick felt his pocket vibrate. Very few victors had something similar to a cell phone when in the Capitol. However with the business that President Snow had him doing, he was on call 24 hours a day. When he picked the device out of his pocket his calm expression changed to a concern one. It wasn't the call he had expected it would seem, "I need to go."

[x5452]

"Wouldn't know until I told it, would I, Cheekbones?" she points out matter-of-factly. Every one of the tributes your government is pulling from the various alternate universes has a sad sack story that may or may not give you reason to believe they'd be loyal."

She cocks her head to the side. "Everything alright?"

[knottherapy]

Finnick only half hears her last statement as he stares at the small screen, "Uh- no. I need to go." He doesn't even bother to pick up the bottle and glass and he starts for the door leading to the elevator. "It was...good talking to you, Miss Max." He speaks as he walks. "Maybe dinner sometime - provided you make it out of the arena." That was a joke gone bad due to his tone being more worried than playful.

[x5452]

Max shoves her hands in her pockets. "Sure." she shrugs. "Hope whatever the problem is works out for you." She watches him depart, before turning to stare out at the city again, desperately wishing she could feel the night air on her face from atop the Space Needle.

[OOC: End it here?]

[knottherapy]

"Yeah, thanks-" he pauses to look back at her. "I do believe you." What he believes her about, he doesn't say, but instead disappears swiftly to tend to his distraught lover back in the District Four suite.

[ooc- we can for now - then pick it up when she makes it out of the arena?]