(no subject)

[friend_i_hope]

Who| Hatter and OPEN
What| tea, Tea, Games, betting, anything you like
Where| Wonderland
When| Anytime this week
Warnings/Notes| For anyone not familiar with Hatter's canon, he owns a tea shop! Where he sells actual tea. Also Tea, which is something very different all together. Basically they are bottled emotions. Only good ones, not bad. Your character drinks it and they feel whatever the emotion is: passion, excitement, happiness, innocence, clear conscience, etc. Hatter's shop (Wonderland) is the only place in the Capitol where you can buy Tea, but it is not manufactured by Hatter. It's made by the Capitol, and he doesn't ask too many questions about how.

Also, if you want to come to Wonderland, you must wear a hat. Don't have one? Don't worry! Hatter will provide one at the door. But you may not like his choice.



Hatter was not at all pleased with the new directions the Games were taking, but you would never hear that from his mouth. Nope. He's playing the good citizen just now, and he's even gone so far as to spruce up the shop a bit for the occasion. It looks just a bit like the candy arena, in fact, bright colors and glistening treats. There are the Teas, of course, lined up in a neat row, bright and cheerful, but the tables and chairs are now of the same hues.

The proprietor himself is alternating between staying by the counter to monitor the bets placed and wandering amongst the clientele to see that everyone has everything they need.

Comments

[alldeduction]

Sherlock saw the post on the network, and did a little research of his own. He wasn't completely interested in the product, of course (though a part of his brain, the one that yearned for an escape from the boredom, taunted him with it, as it had with the cocaine). But he was interested in the potential clientelle.

And it was always good to know who could be effected by mood-altering substances.

So he found his way there, dressed carefully but stylishly (he had been giving his stylists a lot more leeway than he had upon his arrival), opening the door to Wonderland.

[friend_i_hope]

It took Hatter about half a minute to spot the newcomer and make his way over to the door. He found he liked the Tributes much more than most of his Capitol clientele, so it was easy to smile and greet the man with a friendly, "Welcome to Wonderland. Sherlock, isn't it? Can I call you Sherlock?"

He spoke quite quickly and with an accent that was very different to most Capitol citizens but which Sherlock would probably recognize as a mix of Yorkshire and something not quite Cockney.

[pillowmania]

Don't fix what isn't broken. It would be sound advice, except Katurian can't always tell the broken from the fixed. He enters Hatter's shop on a whim, and so he has no hat -- he only has nervous fingers, averted eyes, slumped shoulders. He also has that cheerful idiom circling in his head, reminding him that the things this man offers are unnecessary. He is perfect just the way he is. He is getting by.

And yet he's still here.

He stays close to the walls. With the way he slouches, it's like he's cowering from an invisible blow.

[friend_i_hope]

Hatter spots him quickly. It's a look a lot of his customers have when they arrive and very few have when they leave. Being the proper host, for once, he goes to greet the man with a friendly smile.

"Afternoon. Good or not, it is afternoon, at least. Or after noon. It's always after noon, in some sense.

"Anyway, aren't you forgetting something?" He gestures to the man's head and touches the brim of his own hat.

[alldeduction]

The accent puts him off at first - something from home that was completely unexpected - but he smothers the surprise and offers only a smile. It's still in his best interest to be as personable as possible, especially to anyone who might have a hint of influence.

"Sherlock, yes. I saw your - ah - message, on the Network." He glanced at the hat sitting on Hatter's head before he brought his eyes back down upon his face.

"I thought I would take a look for myself. No hat. Not part of my usual wardrobe."

[friend_i_hope]

"Not to worry," Hatter said with a grin, turning to a box by the door. "I can fix that."

He dug through the box for a moment before pulling out a hat, and offering it to Sherlock.

[alldeduction]

Deep breath, Sherlock. God knows you've suffered worse indignities the last few days.

Smile tight but still on his lips, he took the offered hat and slipped it on, making for a rather ridiculous combination with the sleek style his stylists preferred. He was, thankfully, hardly the only one in the establishment with a flamboyant hat.

Once it was secured, he narrowed his eyes and swept them over the shop.

"I understand that you go by 'Hatter'."

[friend_i_hope]

Hatter grinned as he took the hat. Sometimes people didn't, though mostly Capitol people knew to bring their own to avoid just such incongruities. "Much better."

He turned to look where Sherlock looked, as if to see what it was he saw. "Generally, yes. Have you come to take advantage of the special? It's quite a deal, really."

[alldeduction]

"I admit that I'm intrigued," Sherlock said evenly, taking a quick stock of who was in the establishment before turning to Hatter and giving him his full attention, the smile practiced, but as natural as he could make it.

"Though knowledge on the exact contents of your - ah - products - seems fairly tightly controlled. If perhaps you were to introduce me to the concept--"

[friend_i_hope]

"Of course," Hatter answered, smiling brightly. He didn't much like the Teas himself, but he did an excellent job of hiding that. "Right this way."

He led the way over to the counter where the Teas were kept, smiling to the girl working the register and waving her away. "We sell them two ways. By the bottle or as a supplement in tea, pot or cup. And they are...just what they say on the tin, as it were."

[pillowmania]

It's intriguing, the way this man speaks in word play. Katurian can't decide if he likes it or if it unsettles him. It's clever, but clever in a way most people can't immediately understand. It's the kind of language that can just as easily become a weapon.

He shrinks back.

"I'm only looking," he says, as though that can be an excuse. He knots his hands. "It won't be more than a minute."

[friend_i_hope]

"Still, rules are rules and there for a reason," Hatter says, glancing briefly to the man's hands. No exceptions, not even for this. Not even for 'only looking.'

"Hang on a tic." He turns to a box by the door and pulls out a hat, offering it to the man.

"Sorry."

[pillowmania]

He flinches away from the hat, his back bumping into the doorframe behind him. It was one thing, going someplace where he didn't belong, but it was quite another to embrace it. Something about the hat makes it official somehow, transforming him from a curious, anonymous shadow and into a customer.

"No," he says, something like anger tinging his words. He drops his eyes. He shakes his head. "No, I don't-- I don't need it. I'm fine. I'm going."

With his eyes still down at the ground, he fumbles for the exit.

[friend_i_hope]

Hatter is almost hurt by that. That someone would choose to leave his establishment rather than put on a hat was...well, not unheard of, but definitely not common.

"If you're sure? Looks to me like you could use a bit of Serenity..."

the end of the week

[savedbyasong]

"Just put it on Shion." The woman, obviously an escort by her dress and mannerisms said snappily as she forced a hat onto the white haired boy trailing behind her and gestured him to a table. Shion sat down looking around the room, the colours looking sickly and fake.

His escort seemed angry she had babysitting duty but seemed to realise Shion would not be leaving his room unless ordered to or dragged and so had brought him into town so he could 'show his face'.

Shion didn't want to show his face, he didn't want to see the televisions and the others still fighting and dying in the arena, he didn't want to be here in the capitol, or see replays of his time as a zombie.

Now they were here his escort seemed to have forgotten him and wandered off to talk to acquaintances, leaving Shion to stare around the tea shop looking lost and confused, the oversized hat falling over his eyes a few times and having to be pushed back up.

[friend_i_hope]

Hatter would be offended if he could see into the boy's head. Nothing sickly or fake about the decor of his shop, thank you very much. (Well, fake, yes, but not sickly.) If one didn't know better, they'd swear the furniture were edible.

Usually he left the waiting of tables to his staff, but he did like to greet newcomers personally. He liked to know who was in his shop at all times.

So with a smile, he made his way to the boy and dropped into the seat across from him. "Hello!"

[savedbyasong]

Shion smiled as the man sat down opposite him, a little forced but a smile none the less. "Hello," even as distracted as he looked he had managed to take in details as he had been brought into the shop. "Do you work here?"

[venenatus]

Liviana wasn't here so much for the teas as for the gossip. She was nearly a year out of the loop and that just wouldn't do for someone who liked to have her finger in all parts of the Capitol. Her smile was bright as she entered the establishment - her hat as elegant as ever - and made her way over to the counter.

"Hatter, I've come for your fine conversation skills and maybe a bit of Contentment. I would not like to have my mind too content for business."

[friend_i_hope]

"Sometimes," Hatter said, cheeks dimpling as his smile deepened. "Sometimes I just watch."

He gestured to the boy's head. "Nice hat." Not the one he'd have chosen for him, but still...it was a hat.

[friend_i_hope]

Wonderland was always good for gossip. A center for placing bets on the Games, it was always busy when they aired, and today was no different.

"Just a drop, then?" he asked, smiling as she approached. Good customers were things he liked to keep.

Gossiping customers even more so.

[savedbyasong]

He pushed the hat up from his eyes, "She said I had to wear it." Looking around it seemed like that really was a rule, and not just something his escort had told him.

[venenatus]

"Yes."

Liviana was one who liked to maintain a certain amount of control over her emotions, so while she wasn't one to spend too much time in Wonderland she was still a frequent visitor. Gossip was worth a lot in the Capitol and it never hurt to be seen placing a few bids now and again; it took a lot of time to maintain the image of a carefree lifestyle.

"While you pour, tell me about these new Tributes. I always like to keep an eye on our stars."

[pillowmania]

"Looks to me like you're trying to make a sale," he says, which would have been a witty retort if his voice were not trembling and his eyes weren't averted.

He grabs the knob and swings the door open. When he leaves, it clicks shut harshly behind him.

[friend_i_hope]

One customer more or less hardly makes a difference to Hatter's day, but he can't help feeling a little bad for this one, wishing he could help.

But if there's one thing Hatter has learned in his life it's that he can't possibly help everyone, much as he would like to.

So if he frowns at the door a moment before turning back to his work, well, the important thing is that he does turn back to his work.

[friend_i_hope]

"You have to wear a hat, sure," Hatter said with a smile, seeing nothing at all unusual about this insistence of his. "But you don't have to wear that hat."

He's disappointed in the boy's stylist, really, that she hadn't even managed to find one that fit.