thecapitol | (no subject)

Who| Katurian and Sherlock.
What| An encounter.
Where| The Tesserae Bar.
When| Week 3.
Warnings/Notes| Will add as necessary.

He lost his keys.

On the other end of the line, the landlord tells him that it'll be twenty minutes, but then twenty minutes becomes forty minutes and forty minutes eases into an hour. It has been raining so hard that his fingers are wet and cold from holding the umbrella. His joints are stiff. He might be hungry.

The Tesserae Bar isn't far. Once inside, he slips immediately into the bathroom where he applies thick, black make-up around his eyes to blend in better with the clientele. In the main dining area, he orders an appetizer (chicken satay) and then sends it back (he cannot stomach meat tonight after all) and then orders a garish drink (something with melon and dry ice that curls like smoke) and keeps it. He sits at the bar, quiet and alone, his eyes shut to the crowd around him. He listens to the arena highlights, the sounds of fights and death pumped in through the speakers. With his eyes closed, he likes to imagine that his make-up makes him look like a skull.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sherlock hates the place.

He hates pretty much everything about the capitol, but the Tessarae bar has a special place of hatred in his heart - a hatred that never reaches his face as he slips inside. He's immaculately well dressed, the bracelet of rebellion obvious on his wrist. It causes people to look but ultimately he's buttering them up for John, not for himself, so he couldn't care less what they think about it.

He couldn't cover it if he wanted to, his stylist keeps making sure it's clearly visible.

He goes to the bar, first, ignoring the man there on his right, and orders water. With colouring in it, and a garnish. He didn't see the point in drinking, but making people think that he was meant that they said more to him than they would otherwise.

He'd gotten more than one sponsor to talk to him while he was pretending to be drunk.

He hears the drink order before he sees the man. Who orders mock alcohol? An eccentric, maybe. A doting boyfriend buying a drink for his too-soon pregnant girlfriend.

But no. When he glances up, he sees that it's a rebellious Tribute.

Katurian recognizes Sherlock in the way a person might recognize a celebrity. There is a familiarity there, a sort of vague feeling that you have met this person before, you know this person, but it's mixed with dizzying new terrain. Sherlock is a stranger wearing a friend's smile. This is a man who shares a name with one of the Victors, who helped the not-quite copy of himself survive just a little bit longer. He belongs on a television. Not here.

He doesn't immediately realize that he's staring.

Sherlock does. He doesn't even have to glance over to feel Katurian's eyes on him, boring holes into his shoulder. He smiles (fake, plastic) at the bartender as the man gives him his faux drink, takes a casual sip from it, as if he doesn't notice Katurian at all, and then turns as if to leave the bar.

He pauses, eyes catching Katurian's as he turns. Not by chance.

(He was making use of any interest these days. Even if they weren't sponsors, sponsors had friends.)

He raised an eyebrow, and his glass, the bracelet glinting on his wrist. "Did I disturb your reverie?" He asked, a smooth baritone.

Edited 2013-07-12 14:21 (UTC)

Katurian has never been a quick thinker. He deliberates. He plans. He does his best work while pacing around a darkened room, not while looking down the barrel of a gun -- metaphorical or otherwise. It's why his counterpart couldn't last very long in the arenas, and it's why if the revolution ever happens, Katurian is sure he'll be one of the first against the wall.

"Um," he says, spreading his thin fingers around the base of the glass, shaking his head. Unlike his counterpart, his fingernails are not speckled with blood. Instead, they're too short and somewhat uneven, a result of too much nervous chewing. His pallor and scrawniness scream Districts more than they scream Capitol. His wide eyes look beyond Sherlock and into the crowd, begging for a rescue, before struggling to look at his face.

"No," he says, shaking his head once again. "No, I, um."

He is tempted to run like he did with Hatter, but he is trapped against the bar, his feet dangling from the stool, his knees pressed against the bottom of the counter. He runs a hand through his hair, fingers catching in his scalp. It was the same nervous tic his counterpart had.

"It's good to see that you're back in the Capitol, is all."

Sherlock is excellent with patterns, especially with patterns of people. But patterns are just that, and nothing more - there are thousands of people that fall into similar nervous habits (the chewed finger nails, the discomfort, the shit), so though he reminds Sherlock of a pattern, one that the Katurian he knew fits, he doesn't link the two.

Not yet.

He smiles, charmingly, and completely falsely.

"I assume you don't mean that you prefer me dead," He said, the tone amused. "And that you simply mean you're glad I'll have a fourth shot. Fan?"

He's hyper-aware of the tight muscles around his lips, the way they tremble and give as he forces a smile.

"I guess so," he says. "I mean, I like your relationship with that man." He runs his teeth along his lips, as though the name is on the tip of his tongue. (He remembers it so well.) He snaps soundlessly. "With John Watson."

It's the truth. He straightens his back and takes a full swing of his drink.

"Do you." The amusement is still there, as his mind runs several quick calculations, attempting to discern the best possible reaction for this particular conversation.

The smile tightens slightly, the eyes drop (only for a second). His fingers hesitate on his glass. "He and I go a ways back," is all he says about that. Nice and vague, with only the barest touch of sadness before he forces back the charming smile.

"Hence the drink," He says, tapping his glass. "Attempting to drum up Sponsor support for John. Makes me - ah - more approachable. Or so I'm told."