(open) Attention, all personnel. New survival manuals have arrived.

[swill]

Who| Hawkeye and anyone!
What| He has his first adventure in the Capitol; don't worry, it's a tame one.
Where| Out in the city, then in the common room.
When| Week 6
Warnings/Notes| None yet!

Dying was new. Dying as in losing his life. Dying as in being lost in terror and losing all or most sense of being a person, he'd done before. Despite it all- the miracles of medicine he had no doubt experienced moments prior to being escorted to his room, before he lay in the luxurious bed for hours and stood under the warm spray of water in the shower for hours more- Hawkeye felt like he'd just done all of this before. He felt he should be more thrilled. He wasn't. He wondered if maybe that meant something was wrong with him, that he hadn't hollered and hooted at taking a breath of air again, at seeing his hand whole, at being able to move without pain. After a night back in the company of the living -because he sure as hell wasn't dead and this sure wasn't Hell or Heaven- Hawkeye had convinced himself he was as sane as he should be and as content as was acceptable to be.

[Out and About]
Silent pep talk done with, he silently slipped out of his quarters -it was weird, thinking that entire room was for him alone- and with a skip to his step, he dared venture down to the common room, the lobby, that place where he inferred all the poor bastards and disheartened saps had to congregate or at least pass through to get away. A first step. And he wasn't sure why he hadn't noticed the color before -chalked it up to his being in shock- but it's what strikes him first after the relief of getting an elevator ride done with. Color! Again, he was supposed to hoot and shriek. He had whined about the dullness of olive and green and beige all around him for the past three years. He had dreamed about color, about bright reds and oranges, and pinks and blues. But suddenly it was too much, too bright, too soon. He stepped through the room without much celebration. One woman with a too-pale face and make-up that'd make the crudest call girl cringe waved at him and he waved back. Hello, stranger. Hello, strange world. There were televisions around- or projections- or whatever. They forced him to look ahead, to his goal and nothing else: out. Lovely room, lovely showers, lovely beds and sofas and what a lovely lounge. But he had to get out.

And when he finally did step out, he wasn't sure if he should keep walking. Hawkeye looked this way and that, found a road that seemed straight enough, and marched on. The Capitol had to end somewhere, by God, or maybe that was the liquor talking. His suite had been stocked.

[Central Commons]
But it didn't end. And eventually he found himself sprawled over one of the couches, screwing with the communicator, drawing back every time he'd manage to make it do anything and shutting it down. He decidedly kept his eyes off the projections of the Games still on-going. He bemoaned the fact that he didn't have a ball and paddle or yo-yo. When a man with bluish skin and green hair strolled on by, Hawkeye whistled shrilly to get his attention, asked how life as a stick of broccoli was going for him, and fought back the urge to deck him for the hell of it. But it'd look silly to exert so much effort into something that would be so fruitless when Hawkeye was upside down in the seat now, head danging where his legs should and legs bent comfortably over the back of the chair. It at least earned him a look here and there and Hawkeye took it as more evidence that he was, in fact, alive again.

So he had said he was through freaking out about that earlier. So he'd lied. Sue him. Do it.

Someone to his right, another freak, another stupid person in this new and stupid world, talks about a lost bet. Hawkeye growls, pretends he's a dog. Gets the person to at least step away. His eyes catch, after much struggle to keep them averted, a replay on one of those fantastic screens. The jungle's shown, a pair of strangers fight. Someone here, away from the jungle, talks about betting again. He swears he would have punched the bastard if he had gotten right-side up quick enough to find the face he was looking for. Hawkeye feels a shudder travel through him, and knows his finger isn't steady as he points at the screen ahead and hollers, red in the face, in a higher pitch than he'd cared for, "Somebody shut that damned thing off!"

What the heck was the matter with these people?

"Or tune it to a different channel! It's been the same thing playing all damn day."

Didn't they get bored? He did. He got bored easily.

Comments

[doc_holi]

Holiday let out a slow, deep breath, as she leaned back in her chair as well. She didn't mind his feet being on the table or his attitude or anything of that sort. He was still reeling from the arena - from this place - and the truly bad part was that Holiday didn't know what to do for that. She usually just helped get someone drunk or allowed a listening ear. This time was a little different.

"They have stronger things," she suggests, watching the waiter go back into the shop. Of course they had beer at a coffee shop. They had steaks and five course meals and sushi and coffee at every little street corner. The ways of the Capitol and its spoiled citizens, after all.

She sips at her drink and her eyes roam back to his again. Gently, Holiday puts her coffee back on to the table beside his feet and leans back again to watch him. "You're not in trouble with me, Hawkeye, or is that not what you meant? You handled things there as well as any good person would and you're handling things here as well as anyone has."

[swill]

He didn't pay the waiter any mind. He hadn't even known there had been one until Holiday spoke up and he commented through a snort, "Don't tempt me to run up your tab." And he knew what a boor he was being and couldn't bring himself to care. And he remembered a time before the war when he'd flirt differently- and he stops the line of thought there because this sure wasn't flirting. This sure wasn't his kind of flirting. --or it was, but the mood was all wrong. Everything was all wrong. Nothing was what it seemed, any doctor knew that. This wasn't-- and Hawkeye didn't even know what he was thinking of.

He hears Holiday speak again and it seemed to him like it was muted. Like when the radio was tuned to the crackpot news and the announcer had said with a laugh his name, and his attention had snapped to at the mess tent because all of a sudden he heard his name broadcast to God knows how many people, labeled as a war criminal. And it was a cheap shot and all lies and his blood had boiled but he'd done nothing about it at all. It felt like that, but it was longer.

And the service was quick because the Capitol loved its tributes and there was a cold beer placed on his side of the table. Or at least, once he slid his boots off the table and sat up like a decent alcoholic and gave the bottled beverage a sniff, it smelled enough like beer. What he wouldn't give for a martini, lighter fluid, and silence. "I'm not saying I'm in trouble with you," he parrots, again a sultry schoolboy. "At least I'd hope I wasn't. I haven't done a thing to you. I should be thanking you, actually, because you didn't only save my life, you saved the girl's. We were nearly starving. I freaked out then and I'm freaking out now. What I'm trying to say, Rebecca, is that I seem to lose all control when I'm around you. Some how." Of his mouth, for example. That runs away from him too and no, Hawkeye tells himself, it isn't love. "I'm not used to it so I'm acting up. Then again, I act up for any number of reasons. This just happens to be at the top of the list."

[doc_holi]

Holiday smiled and chuckled. The only reason he lost control around her was because she had been accidentally scaring him at every turn. Not that she didn't take a small, guilty bit of joy out of that, but it was still unexpected. The way he dove away from her food package was surprising, annoying, and actually kind of funny all in one.

"I'm glad you two appreciated the gesture and, I promise, I didn't have any intentions of freaking either of you out." She was also sorry that she couldn't send more, but figured saying something like that may have been in bad taste for some reason.

"We need more people to act up around here," she tells him quite honestly. "Usually people are dreary or quiet. Something fun, loud, and outspoken is always welcome to me." Maybe that was way she liked hanging out with Harley.

[swill]

Time bomb, remember? No? Christ, he hated her. Sipping her beer and feeling nothing of relief come from the bottle, he wasn't sure why he thought she'd come to the rescue again. He wasn't sure why he hoped for so much out a stranger.

He managed to swallow before he turned red in face, before he stood and pushed the chair out from under him in one movement, before he slammed his hand down on the table with not nearly as much force as he might have wanted. There were eyes on them. To hell with them. Christ, she killed him. "That's it?" He demanded- but didn't shout. "'Appreciate the gesture', 'fun', l-loud- I-- that's it, that's what you're going to say to me?" And Christ, he feels like a tool in the most foolish of ways but he couldn't fathom the-- "You're just going to be calm about this?" Because being rational was such a bad thing, right? Such a shame to not be reduced to tears over trauma. He feels himself growing smaller, then realizes he's just spread his legs under him and bent an elbow at the table where he now rested his head. His hair- he wants to tear it out. He died. He died! Why wasn't... why wasn't that a bigger deal? He knew the answer. He wasn't a child. But. Christ. How could this ever be normal? The girl, his... his girl. The death. The applause of it. The circus was cruel and he was the only one who knew the mahouts used spikes.

[doc_holi]

Oh, no. She definitely remembered and was casually waiting for him to let loose. She even figured that this wouldn't be the last time (or the worst time) that he freaked out. After all, hers included trashing her room and punching a mentor in the face. Twice.

Holiday wasn't acting like she was the elder in the situation. The one that knew everything forward and backwards, because this was the first time that someone attempted to come to terms with their situation in an almost violent way in front of her. She didn't blame him at all. She just wished she knew of better ways to help other than offering a stouter drink. In her experience, nothing ever helped and nothing was ever going to help.

She waited until he had lowered himself back down to speak. "Getting angry helps sometimes," she said, shifting in her seat again. "Screaming, tearing things up, punching people that you hardly even know just because they made a stupid comment at the wrong time. It helps for a few minutes, but remaining calm and rational will get you further in the long run. No one would blame you for it, except some of the citizens here.

"... If you want my sympathies for your death, then I'm sorry, but it doesn't mean much either to a lot of people. This was my fourth time and I'm not even a veteran." She did understand him, though. That had to count for something, even if she didn't outright tell him that.

None of it was good enough, though. Nothing she could possibly say was good enough and she knew it, so Holiday sighed. "No one here is used to this, except for a few crackpots in that tower. No one really copes with it. They just change to better suit it, if they can... Are you sure you don't want something stronger?"

[swill]

"You're not saying anything new to me," he whines, and it's just that and he doesn't try to hide the hushed and disappointed disbelief. He came to a new world entirely unprepared and he had no way of getting home, he was surrounded by strangers, some striving only to keep their sanity and humanity and others intent only on breaking them and profiting off their despair. It was a high stress situation, sure, and that was putting everything mildly but how was it anything new? You hit someone, you get angry, you write the most obscene letter to the president's wife and get nothing at all in return.

How was this new?

It was maddening, how everything was recycled, and he still wasn't sure she understood it. And what could he say to make her understand? What could he do? Everyone was in the same boat.

And he exhales and he finds a smile snaking onto his lips and he turns a palm up and says, "I don't want your sympathy," and almost even laughs. Because it was laughable. No, he was a doctor and he didn't need any of this. And no, he's not making a lick of sense to himself either. Four resuscitations, well, gee, she was like a new Jesus. His stance is awkward, and he feels like a call girl with his legs parted like that, so he stands up right and looks around like he's lost again and thinks about the beer he's hardly tasted but he says, "No, I think I'll just go."

[doc_holi]

Was that for the best? Was she that useless to help someone adjust?

Then again, she never really adjusted herself. No one really helped her come to terms with it, explained in a way that made it better, said something that made everything better. It was always little things and her own attempts to block away the past.

Her hand wraps tightly around the green ribbon on her wrist.

"They allow tokens in the arenas," she says seemingly randomly. "Little things like keepsakes for the tributes to carry with them. They help." It's only after she says it that she realizes how random that is to say. He must think she's as crazy as he is. She's pretty sure that she's worse off.

"I'm in District 8 if you ever find a reason to stop by." It's not an invitation she gives out to everyone, especially to those she hardly knows, but it seemed to fit with the moment nicely enough. She wanted to tell him that she was sorry and to wish him luck, but those felt better remaining unspoken.

[swill]

He wasn't sure what he had expected from Holiday touching her bracelet. It's the first time he's heard of tokens, so he simmers down long enough to listen because it doesn't sound like a lecture or an attempt to placate him. It was just this tidbit he doesn't remember asking for or even leading up to. For a second, Hawkeye replays the past moments in his head. He had stood, angry, told her he'd march off without marching off just yet. She had touched the green ribbon- which he hadn't noticed until then- and then she just told him about a hidden little rule in the playbook of the Hunger Games. He feels an urge to bring his hands up to touch the chain around his neck, but he was dead already anyway and the two dog tags had been separated. Ellie had the other. In the Army's way, Hawkeye was dead.

Right, he thinks. They let trinkets from home into the battle to watch as homesickness seeps into the soldiers in their final moments. He grunts.

He wonders why the invitation, and finds his confidence deflating by the second. He'd better make this quick or else he was liable to find his feet cemented to the ground. "Supposedly I'm in Four," he answered. "But I won't be back. I'm off to Korea. Where I was also taken to against my will. But at least I'll be of some use there. I get paid." And he wasn't sure why he mentioned the miserable excuse for pay in that den of servitude. "And the second I set foot there- and I don't know how but I will- the second I set foot there, I'm going home. Understand? Because I don't take nicely to being told what to do, not when there are things I absolutely refuse to do but am expected to do anyway. So thanks for the drink, Doctor, and thanks for the food but I'm gone. I'm going to walk until my feet bleed and then I'm going to walk some more. I can't stay here and I don't know how you can." He dropped his hands to his side, stepped once back- stepped forward when he remembers he forgot to say something very important and he even ducked his head while saying, "Tell El-- tell Ellie I said goodbye. Now goodbye." But he hadn't been lying about walking off the second he said that. He doubted he'd make it as far as he'd said, but the hell with it. He had to try. So he sighed heavily and stuffed both hands of his in his jacket pockets and sort of shrugged and murmured something he couldn't make out himself.

[doc_holi]

Korea. The Korean War, perhaps? It made more sense. She knew that he was in a militant medical unit, but not from her specific timeline. Yes, it made sense.

She followed Hawkeye with her eyes and wondered to herself exactly why did she stay here? Of course, she couldn't leave. She was a prisoner. But why didn't she do like him? Just start walking?

Too many attachments. She cared far, far too much for people. It was the same reason of why she didn't want to become Victor, despite the pushing as of late from her Mentors since Chris-

She didn't finish that thought, because she cared far too much.

Holiday looked back to her table and, after a moment, tipped her coffee cup over until it crashed on to the floor and the waiters began swarming around the mess. She stood, took his hardly touched beer, and began heading back to the tribute center. If she happened to see an Ellie, she would give them his message, but it didn't really matter. He wasn't going anywhere either.