thecapitol | A new arrival [open]

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A new arrival [open]

Who| Ian and you!
What| Ian arrives. This is not basic training.
Where| District 6 suites and the main tribute lounge
When| The day he arrives
Warnings/Notes| Very likely language. Will update. Also since I realised Ian has likely read the Hunger Games (or at least heard about it from his little sister) after talking to the mods I decided on a similar-but-different approach.

[District 6 suites] Things just got stranger once they let him out of the test chamber. He was taken up to his room- his own room, which was weird enough even without everything else.

He was angry though, how had he gone from on the bus on his way to basic training to standing in a room more luxurious than even Lloyd's hotel room with a feeling that this was all too familiar.

They'd taken all his stuff, even his clothes and given him a dark grey tracksuit to wear. With a last look around the room he left, looking around the corridor and peering into the lounge.

He wasn't staying here, as nice as it was and so he walked to the door fully expecting it to be locked, after all who kidnapped people then let them walk around free?

Apparently whoever was behind this.

[Main lounge]

Downstairs there was another lounge, and so many TVs it was unreal. Ian leaned on the door frame and looked in.

There were even kids here, some of these lot couldn't be as old as Debbie, hell a couple weren't even as old as Carl. Ian clenched his fists hoping he had misheard when the guy who showed him to his room had told him everyone who lived here were being chucked into a death match.

He wouldn't be surprised though, people were sick sometimes.

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Mickey enters the lounge with a drink in hand, if they're going to ply him free alcohol he's going to take advantage of the fact after all. He's much cleaner than he usually is, the effect of being completely scrubbed down, there's a few days worth of grime on him but it's hardly noticeable in comparison.

He stops short when he sees Gallagher's familiar build and red hair because, no, it can't be. Ian enlisted and got away from Southside and away from him. There's no way he could have ended up here of all places. Shit, if you wanted to get away from Southside this place wasn't exactly the best next thing (not that war was really the next best thing either...).

For a moment he considers turning around and pretending he never his... whatever they are or were. The drink in his hand wasn't strong enough to deal with this. And, surprisingly, neither is Mickey.

"Gallagher?" he says, his voice cracking just a little bit just like it did when he tried to reach out and say don't.

Well that was a voice Ian was hoping to not have to hear in a long time. At least until hearing it didn't hurt. A moment later he realised what Mickey being here meant. Whoever had grabbed him off that bus had grabbed him to. Why? And How?

And if they had brought Mickey who else had they brought? He looked around the room as if expecting to see Mandy, or Debbie, or Carl.

"Mickey." His voice did not come out as even and calm as he wanted it to. "Fuck."

Mickey is going to do what Mickey does best (besides beat the crap out of people) and pretend that their last meeting never really happened. Well, it happened but there were no feelings or emotions or anything shared. Really those just get in the way of everything and he doesn't need that.

"You get lost on the way to the army?"

No. They weren't doing this. This was why Ian was leaving. Because he was sick of Mickey pretending he didn't care, or that Ian didn't matter to him.

"Fuck you." He turns around, planning on leaving the room.

No, Ian was leaving because he's apparently shit at taking nonverbal cues with it comes to Mickey. If Mickey didn't care he would have shut the door in Ian's face when he came around after Monica showed up. If Mickey didn't care he wouldn't have fought his father for him, you know, the same guy he was so scared of that he got himself sent to juvie because it was safer. So no, fuck you Ian Gallagher.

He reaches out and grabs his shoulder, pulling and pushing so Ian is facing him again before immediately letting go to pull his arm back and prepare himself to punch Ian in the face. Again.

If they fought maybe they would yell at each other and something would get said. Really it was his best bet.

Hence the pretending, Ian knew Mickey cared, that was the whole point. He knew he cared and couldn't stand to see him hide it. Ian glares at him as he is pulled back round, daring him to hit him.

Which he does because he is Mickey Milkavich, and Ian takes it because yeah he probably deserved that one.

He shoved him away though after because he had let Mickey beat him up once already. He clenched his fists. "Feel better?"

He clenches his fist but drops his arms because no, if Ian's going to be all passive about it then he doesn't feel better. While Mickey has no problem with beating someone up it's kind of boring when they don't at least try and fight back. Sure, he gets plenty of enjoyment from fights but beating Ian leaves him kind of empty.

"Hey," he says roughly instead, "this place is a fucking death match. When it starts, find me."

And he really hopes that Ian understands that he doesn't mean so he can kill him but so he can protect him. Most of the things he does it to protect Ian or himself, hopefully he's not too fucking stupid to realize that.

"So they told me." Ian does understand and it just makes him angrier. Because he doesn't need to be protected, he'd lived many years without any help from Mickey.

"You gonna protect me?" His face hurt but he forced himself not to touch it. "Show everyone what a macho hero you are?"

He knew the words were cruel, and he knew Mickey had protected him, he had fought Terry which was more than Ian had brought himself to do. But he was too angry, hurt and confused to care.

He wants to laugh at him. He's fully aware that Ian doesn't need protection. Mickey may get into more fights and be more experiences but Ian has training and has literally taken him down in one hit before. If anything Ian would probably be protecting him.

He scowls at him, "If I wanted you dead I would have let my dad fucking kill you, alright?" In typical Mickey fashion he avoids the part of the question he doesn't want to answer. But it's true, this isn't some macho posturing it's more we have a better chance if we stick together. He's just not going to say that out loud.

Right. Ian had a feeling that was as close to anything he was getting out of Mickey. He unclenched his fists, he was still angry. Still furious but chances were they'd both be dead soon enough. And he didn't want to spend his last days, weeks, whatever being mad at Mickey.

"Okay."

Wow this is like the most civil conversation they've had in a long while. He's not sure where it's supposed to go from here so instead he takes out a cigarette and lights it before taking a long drag and offering it to him.

"We cool?"

He kind of hates himself for caring about Ian thought of him, it was much easier to pretend that he didn't care and to ignore him. When he thought Ian was going off to the army it was a bit easier (but still fucking difficult) to say fuck it, but if they're going into a death match side-by-side he doesn't want to be confronted with his possible death before his eyes again.

He takes it, it calms him down a bit though it no where makes up for the being kidnapped for a fight to the death part of this whole mess. He nods though, because obviously running away hadn't worked, so he would just have to work with what he had.

"We're cool." He hands back the cigarette.

He takes it back but makes sure their fingers don't brush. He doesn't really know what to do next, usually their encounters like this aren't that long. They fight, they fuck, they separate but leaving seems like it could disturb the fragile peace they made. Besides, they leave each other way too often.

"You even make it to the fuckin army?"

Far too often. Ian notices how carefully Mickey takes the cigarette but doesn't mention it.

"Fuck off. I made it to the bus."

He looks past Ian and wipes at his lower lip.

"You get one it?"

Because for some reason that's an important distinction for him. Did Ian really go so far as to enlist to get away from him?

"Yeah." He tried to sound casual about it, like leaving his whole life was normal and every day. He reached out for the cigarette again. "Got about half way there before I ended up here."

Mickey passes it without thinking, it had become so natural to him to share his things with Ian. He kind of hated it.

But then he realized something.

"Oh fuck," he dragged his hands down his face, "you tell anyone else you enlisted?"

Because if not then it's just going to seem like the two of the disappeared around the same time and people will talk. His dad would be pissed.

"Shit." The realisation hit Ian at the same time, he had told no one he was even leaving, outside of Liam but that didn't really count.

Terry would be furious, even if they did manage to get out of this it wouldn't be safe for Mickey to go home. And while they were here, well Ian knew Terry wouldn't be past taking it out on his family if he thought Ian was to blame for Mickey's disappearance.

"Fuck."

"Fuck!" Mickey shouts just to let something out.

He chews on his lower lip for a bit before blurting out, "Mandy. She's not fucking stupid, she mighta listened in." But he also knew that Mandy understood privacy so it was a pretty slim chance. But she did confront him after Ian walked away.

She might have, she at least knew that they had... argued, not argued, angrily not had a conversation the night before Ian had left, so she would at least not think they had gone together.

"You found a way out yet?"

"Fuck, Gallagher. You think I'd still be in this shithole if I found a way out?" He sneers at him. But whatever. What if he doesn't want to go back? Sure there's the death match thing but all the food and booze is free and Terry and Svetlana aren't here. ~~And Ian is here.~~

"I don't know, maybe." He shrugged. "Maybe you were waiting to make your move."

"Yeah, well," he toys with the butt of his cigarette, "home is shit, here is shit. At least the food and booze is free."

"Well I've never said no to free booze." He shrugged, reaching out for the cigarette again.

Since the whole fiasco with the public broadcasting, Holiday had been keeping her interactions with the other tributes even shorter than before. Despite all of her words, she was still making a point to not slow down on Sponsor dates since they still wanted her. It was something that very much disgusted here, really, and she had a good idea that she was being viewed as a hypocrite, but it didn't matter.

She hadn't lied. She wasn't here to win.

Holiday was in between dates and just relaxing in the public area of the common lounge. She wasn't inviting attention or even really avoiding it. At the moment, she just didn't care really. That is until she looked over and saw a young man looking around. Holiday frowned to him. So there were more of them now. And more that were too young.

"Are you new around here?"

Ian didn't answer for a moment, not realising he was being spoken to at first but a moment later he saw the woman frowning at him. "Yeah." He sounded defensive. He figured he would have to fight for every inch of respect he wanted here and part of him wished Lip was with him.

But another part argued he didn't need him, he would have had to deal with people in the army alone. "What of it?"

Holiday frowned more. "You don't have to be defensive outside of the arena. We're all here just like you." But he'll figure that out on his own, unless he's really paranoid. "What's your name?"

Well Ian wasn't going to be rude if people weren't threatening him. He raised an eyebrow at her though, if she was trying to convince him that there was camaraderie between people who were forced to fight for the death she would have to try harder.

"Ian Gallagher."

Well, not everyone saw things the way she did.

She nodded to him. "Rebecca Holiday. How long have you been here so far?"

"A couple of hours max, they left me alone about half an hour ago." And before that had been confusing non explanations and his demonstration of skills.

Oh. She frowned and sighed. "If you have some questions, I don't mind trying to answer them. I've been here for about two arenas now."

"My only question was how the hell do we escape but if you've been here that long you obviously don't know the answer to that yourself." That didn't bode well, though the fact she had been around for two arenas and was still alive, that was a small bit of hope at least.

Edited 2013-06-18 08:31 (UTC)

Well, it wasn't really that. "I don't think we do, honestly. There's bound to be a way. Others have left before, but no one really knows how. If they do know, they aren't talking about it."

"Brilliant." Just what he needed. But she was hopefully right, and if people had left before. "Nice of them to leave without sharing the secret."

Then again, who was he to criticise selfishness in the name of survival. He'd probably do the same thing.

Alright he'd probably take Mickey with him.

"Yeah," she sighed. Even though those others have left, though, it doesn't necessarily mean that they were able to go home. "What District are you in?"

"Eight, or six. One of those." Six he thought, probably. "Actually I think it was six, a lot of information in a very short time."

"I'm in District 8," she answered back, "To bad we aren't in the same one. I'm not sure who's in District 6, but just about all of them has their share of good people. I think you'll do fine, so long as you stay smart."

Ian wasn't sure that good people were something he should be happy about in a forced death match but he nodded. Smart was more Lip than him but he knew when to keep his mouth shut and try and fit in.

"Anything I should know? They seem pretty lax, letting us walk around like this."

Her lips nearly twitch into a smile at that one. "This is about as lax as it gets. You act how they want you to act, dress how they want you to dress, do what they want you to do, and you'll be just fine here. Gaining sponsors will help you in the arena, too, so try to remember to please the crowd as well. They like drama.

"Just don't cause trouble and you'll be treated like a celebrity." As much as she loathed this place, she wasn't about to outwardly sway a kid's decision to take part in a rebellion. The dirty work was for the adults to handle.

He raised an eyebrow as she started to explain, treated like a celebrity? That pretty much meant every knowing his every move. No thank you.

"So you're saying that in order to succeed I got to be these sick kidnapper's bitch?"

It... was very strange... Holiday smiled and nearly laughed at the his statement. She wasn't like that before, but now... that sounded so funny to her after everything.

She looked up and down for a moment and thought on her next words.

"Yeah," she nodded, "Basically. I wouldn't say that about them, though, if I were you."

Ian nodded with a frown, "Right, I wont." To their faces anyways. He would try anyways, Ian had never been good at keeping his mouth shut around those he didn't respect.

Of course he won't. She'll wait on that one.

"Until the next arena, you're basically free to do whatever you want. They have nice attractions here. Good food." There are a few good things here, after all. Not good enough, but they working when justifying one's own reality.

"So we just hang around, stuffing our faces waiting to die?" This was so fucked up Ian shook his head.

She frowned. Really, Holiday liked the kid so far and she didn't want to see him go down a bad path here. "Don't think of it like that. It's really not that bad once you're used to it."

"I'll keep that in mind." Even if he wasn't sure how it wouldn't be that bad, or how such a situation could have a good side to it.

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A new arrival [open]

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