Someday I will ask you if I was a disapointment.

[the_marshal]

WHO| Wyatt and Open
WHAT| Enjoying a frosty, adult beverage (or ten)
WHERE| The Speakeasy
WHEN| A few days prior to Maximus' crowning
Notes/Warnings| No warnings at this time, will add any as they become appropriate. Epic levels of bromance. If anyone's been hoping to chat with Wyatt, this will probably be your last open chance prior to the new arena.



Max's crowning was all Wyatt's stylists could talk about, the whole District Ten team - including his escort - in a tizzy and growing ever more frazzled as it approached. It was at once both amusing, and disconcerting.

He didn't hold any particular ill will against the lot of them anymore - he'd come to accept them as more a nuisance than anything sinister - but he didn't much care for the way they eyed him speculatively when they passed in the halls or common room, whispering to each other and making strange gestures with their hands.

And, of course, whatever they were planning aside, the crowning also meant that the new arena wasn't far off.

He was happy to celebrate Max's victory for what it was, and for what it meant, but he couldn't stop that niggling concern from rooting around in the back of his mind, especially as he was spending so more time alone this round. Just him and his own thoughts, worrying over the possibilities like a hound at a bone.

He hadn't spoken to Howard, unsure there were even words enough to apologize - to earn forgiveness - for what he'd done in the arena, and he didn't want to speak to R. He could feel the lingering heat of that still burning bridge. Max was busy, of course. Everyone and their second-cousin wanting a few minutes with the new victor.

Even numbing his troubles at The Speakeasy was an undertaking anymore, the pub, like so many other places, turned off by the cuff shackled around his wrist. They hadn't thrown him out yet, but it was clear the attention he brought them was now of the unwanted variety and he'd cut his visits down accordingly.

He wasn't here to cause trouble.

He just sat his table toward the back, taking the insults that did come his way silently. Drinking alone as he toyed with the necklace he'd worn to the auction. He'd cut the cord and was now in the process of adding a few, more unusual charms, to either side of the little golden eagle.

Comments

[gluteus]

Maximus was having a host of his own problems - some similar to Wyatt's, some quite different.

His stylist team had been fussing over him something fierce since he'd got back. Where usually they left him alone, intimidated or perhaps even afraid, they'd gotten over their fears and now it was impossible to get rid of them. You represent all of us now, they'd chided him as they'd presented him with more and more elaborate clothing.

He found himself in mourning for the comfortable simplicity of a rough linen tunic.

But the stylists were bearable, even welcome, compared to the crushing adoration of the Mob.

It seemed like no matter where he went, he found no peace. He was hardly inconspicuous (his stylists had made sure of that), and he couldn't even walk down the street without someone throwing themselves at him. Peacekeepers had taken to following him around (at a good distance) just to keep order.

The Speakeasy was one of the only places where they left him alone, so he'd been staying there more and more frequently. The Patrons there didn't give a shit about his status, and turned a blind eye as he quietly drank, in a corner to himself.

He kept missing Wyatt. Where before the arena he'd usually casually seek the man's company out here, it appeared that he didn't frequent the Speakeasy as much as he had. Maximus didn't ask after him (it was his business, not theirs), but he did keep an eagle eye look out.

So when he walked in and saw the familiar face at one of the tables, he let out a relieved breath and a smile, and walked over to slide himself down into the chair opposite.

[the_marshal]

He was greeting with a low whistle, the corner of Wyatt's mouth twitching as he tugged tight a new knot in the thin black cord. (The old one sat in the bottom of his beer bottle, pickling in the minute remains of his drink.)

"Well, don't I feel under-dressed."

More red, more gold, Max stood out amongst the drab game birds like Wyatt. A man nearby, already several bottles in, narrowed his eyes at Max as if the shock of color hurt him.

"You'll have to forgive me, I wasn't expectin' such comely companionship."

[gluteus]

"They won't give me a moment's peace," Maximus groused lowly with a long-suffering look as he pulled the gaudy cloak around his shoulders. "I preferred when they were scared of me."

He glanced over to the bar, signalling for his usual deep glass of wine, which the barkeep brought over with as impassive a face he could manage, before walking away.

Maximus dragged the wine close to him as he glanced down at Wyatt's fingers.

"Dare I ask what you're working on today?"

[the_marshal]

His tongue clucked gently. He was amused, but not entirely unsympathetic. Stylists were a curse they all bore.

(That the barkeep didn't ask if he'd like another drink himself, he simply ignored.)

"Consolidating." The bigger pieces dragged against the table top, the metal star clinking noisily, the fur of the rabbit's foot a quiet whisper. In between the little eagle jingling, swinging two and fro as he twisted the cord around his fingers again, double-knotting, just to be safe. "Somehow er' another, I got myself quite the collection."

And an odd one perhaps, to an outsider, but none-the-less dear to him.

[gluteus]

Maximus smiled (small and fond) as he leaned across the table to grasp touch the two charms he didn't recognize. A part of him oddly happy that Wyatt had kept the eagle, but he didn't comment on it.

"What are these?" He asked instead.

[the_marshal]

He tugged the cord, a pair of hard jerks, to insure the knots would hold, then let it fall against the table, the black length coiling in front of him like the tail of a snake.

"This one's Howard's," he replied, tapping the lump of gaudy orange fur. "His lucky rabbit's foot. Though when the beasts started comin' in that particular shade, I couldn't tell ya." Smiling gently he touched the other, knuckle brushing one hard point of the star. "This one's mine. My badge."

Battered and beaten, it had seen better days, but he still took the time to shine it up proper, the thin block lettering - U.S. Marshal - in sharp relief across the belly of the star.

[gluteus]

"Starting a collection?" He teased quietly, as he picked up the strange charm necklace, smiling faintly down at it as he ran each piece over with his fingers. He'd seen similar things many times. Soliders were, of course, a superstitious bunch - and any object or item that was seen to give strength or luck to the bearer was often coveted.

"I don't recognize the words," He explained apologetically, as he came to the badge.

[the_marshal]

"We're allowed a token," he said, watching Max's fingers as they moved over the necklace, reaching for his bottle idly and remembering only distantly that it was empty. "...I had trouble pickin' just one."

So he was bending the rules. Ensuring he could take them all.

(Just in case.)

"'U.S. Marshal,'" he supplied quietly. "It was my title. What I was as a lawman."

[gluteus]

"U.S. Marshal," He repeated, running his fingers over the engraved markings and trying to memorize them. English was extremely difficult to read when it simply sounded like Latin, to his ears.

"U.S... that is the empire you are from, correct? The one on which Panem now stands." See? He could remember some things. He flipped it over in his fingers, looked up at Wyatt and smiled. "You wore this so men would know you kept the law?"

[shambler]

Fix this. That's the mantra that's running on repeat in R's brain: you need to fix this. At least try. The Dead part of him, the one that's like all the other zombies out there, thinks that's too hard. It'd be easier to stop thinking.

R stands there swaying and gaping up at the Speakeasy's sign before he finally closes his mouth. He's probably in there. It's either Howard or Wyatt or both, like last time, and R's so spooked at the idea of talking to either of them that he almost turns tail and shuffles off in the opposite direction. Go find a nice, comfortably dark corner to rock in. Instead he lurches forward. There's a reason why the other Dead consider him the resident weirdo.

He finds Wyatt in the back. It takes him awhile to notice there's this invisible line in a radius around the Living man, like he's diseased and he knows it and the other customers know it, too. No one sits near him. People tend to take the long way around if they can. R goes against the grain, pushes one dragging foot forward, and bumps into Wyatt's table with his hip before he gets cold feet.

"...Sit...here? Want...to talk."

[the_marshal]

Wyatt had noticed his arrival and watched his slow, lurching stroll toward him from under his lashes, hoping if he just kept on with his own business, so would the dead boy. When the table jumped, bottle rocking and the necklace swaying and jingling, he had no choice but to acknowledge R's presence.

"If ya feel ya must, R," he sighed roughly, settling the bottle with one hand. "But I'm not sure there's all that much else to say."

[shambler]

This was going to be awkward, R could tell. Sometimes he had a sense for these kind of things.

"I don't...agree. Arena."

R plopped down in the seat across from Wyatt, leaning on the table to balance himself so he didn't sway off his chair. A lot of the Arena was a smear but he remembered enough about Wyatt and the Cornucopia and - and Aunamee, that he wanted to be sitting right here in this booth. R's eyes roved across the table, making the slow journey across its whorls to Wyatt's callused hands and eventually to his face, shadowed and carved with new lines.

[the_marshal]

Wyatt stared back, blue eyes cool and unflinching on R's milky ones, distant and vague.

"What about it?" The metal star - already strung along the cord - clunked heavily against the table as he paused, forgoing his project in favor of R. "Ya wanna explain what happened to Howard, do ya? Or maybe go on some more about what a great fella Aunamee was?"

[shambler]

Where to start? R missed Aunamee already: according to his Escort, he was a no-show at the date auction, a gaping hole that bothered R. Maybe he was dead for real. Like really dead, not zombie-dead or the Capitol's loose definition of Arena-dead. R wasn't even sure how to approach the Aunamee subject with Wyatt just yet, trying to sloppily file everything in order. Go with what Wyatt started with. Howard. That one bite he got, bloody and electric in his mouth. R hung his head, staring back down at the table, watching the light playing against the star.

"Ugh...I..." Made a mistake? Bit the wrong person? Sorry he didn't get a good nip at that frontal lobe of his? Easiest way to get close to someone. R hunched his shoulders. "Howard. No...excuses."

[the_marshal]

Wyatt said nothing, mouth working, mustache pulling tight as his lips thinned, a muscle ticking rhythmically in the left side of his jaw.

Some part of him had hoped R was better than that. That even having seen how rabidly he'd fallen upon Aunamee that when it came to someone like Howard - arguably closer to the dead boy than anyone Wyatt knew of - R would be strong enough to resist.

And his misplaced faith had cost had not him, as it should have in any fair world, but Howard.

"I'm not gonna argue with ya there, R."

[shambler]

The sound that came out of R was more of a wheeze than a sigh. He could feel that stare, the same one from before in Wyatt's shelter, boring into the top of his head.

R swallowed. "Did you...find...him?"

He hadn't made it out of that cave and after what happened with Howard and Julie, he hadn't wanted to. If it wasn't Howard and his new hunger trying to figure out what it wanted, R probably would've just lay where he was pinned by that trap. Wither and starve.

[the_marshal]

"He found me."

As he'd lain dying, still alive only because Max refused to let him go - because he promised to be there when Max returned. He would never forget that sound, that soft, breathy whining. Never unsee Howard's teeth bared at him in a snarl.

"After ya were done with him."

[doc_holi]

"Want some company?"

Holiday had come out for a drink, hitting the first place she found that didn't immediately throw her to the curb for the stupid cuff. Calico's dark green wrist band that she wrapped around the thing probably helped out some.

Usually, when Holiday would see someone she knew in these places, she would immediately warm up to them for company. The plan was the same when she noticed Wyatt sitting alone, yet she was hesitant in the approach. He probably wanted to be left alone with his drink tonight...

She hadn't seen too much of the arenas, but she had kept track of his steps at the end. She would understand if he declined.

[the_marshal]

Unless they were looking to start something, there weren't all that many that troubled themselves over him, quiet and alone at his table, so it was with a heavy heart and a hard expression that he looked up at the sound of footsteps, expecting the worst--

Only to soften almost immediately, the knot sliding loose in his chest.

"Always have time for the good lady Doc," he replied. He didn't go far as to stand - having learned ladies of this time found that more odd than polite - but he did sweep his hat off gently and lean to push out the chair across from him with his foot. "Help yerself."

[doc_holi]

Holiday's smile broadened a bit as she sat. Maybe she shouldn't stay for too long if he wanted to be stuck in his thoughts.

"What are you drinking? I'll buy you a new round."

A part of her wanted to talk to him about the arena, thinking he may need to talk about to an outsider, but she wasn't going to bring it up if he wasn't. Sometimes things just needed to stay there and she respected that.

[the_marshal]

"I think that's supposed to be my line, Miss," he chuckled, threading the thin black cord of his necklace through the little chain on the matted rabbit's foot with nimble fingers and then setting the project aside with his hat. (He could finish it later, after company had gone.)

The bartender didn't look especially thrilled at the idea of Wyatt lingering longer than planned, slanting him a side-long look as he wiped down the bartop. But after a moment, with a long-suffering sigh, he gave in and tossed his rag over his shoulder, approaching the table to take Holiday's order.

"So what brings ya out tonight?" Wyatt asked her once he'd left. "Yer stylists driven you crazy too?"

[doc_holi]

Since she's been out of the arena, Holiday's been switching between colorful, fancy drinks and old fashioned beer or whiskey. Tonight was one of the latter and she ordered some bourbon.

"They're always driving me crazy," she chuckled. "I've just been getting out often, lately, enjoying the nightlife and the drinks that come along with it."

She was slowly becoming a borderline alcoholic, but she cared very little about that. "What's so bad that your stylist is doing to drive you to drinking?"

[the_marshal]

He snorted into his bottle, beer lapping against the glass.

"Crownin's comin' up," he said, eyes rolling gently, voice echoing in the neck of the bottle. He took a drink, shook his head as he swallowed. "They mean well, but if they don't stop lookin' at me like that..."

He trailed off, lips pressing together.

[doc_holi]

Holiday shrugged. "I punched my mentor a couple of times. Surely, you won't get any worse for decking one of the stylists."

She took down one of her shots. Holiday's full of helpful advice today.

[the_marshal]

His eyebrows shot up, teeth flashing in a surprised grin.

"They didn't seem to care for it when I cracked Aunamee."

He never would have pegged the cool, calm Doc as the type to resort to that sort of thing - but then, they'd said the same thing about him, hadn't they?

Kindred spirits.

He chuckled softly, "Temptin' though."