Venus Dee Milo (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
celebrityskinned) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thearena2014-02-19 07:41 pm
celebrityskinned) wrote in thearena2014-02-19 07:41 pm
Entry tags:
All of Our Flaws Are Laid Out One by One [Closed]
WHO| Venus Dee Milo and Topher Brink, Venus and Wyatt Earp
WHAT| Venus kills Topher and chats with Wyatt about their dumb (pseudo-)boyfriends.
WHEN| Week 5
WHERE| Fourth floor
WARNINGS| Death by impalement.
Her route through the east wing of the fourth floor gets shaken up every day or so. She's never been one for routine, and furthermore she doesn't want anyone pulling a videogame maneuver and waiting on her to turn a corner to run past her and head for the cafe. Having Sherlock get past her shook her enough.
Today she goes through the hall with the elevators, a chamber full of fossilized dinosaur eggs, and ends up in the huge room with the prehistoric animals. The ribcage of the whale above her reminds her of a claw machine at an arcade, about to lower down and snatch her up while her leg is injured and she's all vulnerable.
She stops when she sees someone turn a corner in front of her - just the heel of a shoe, but enough for her to follow. Covering the slash on her face with one hand and taking the knife in her other, she pads after Topher into the dinosaur exhibit.
-/-
She doesn't like walking by the movie theater screen here. The chatter of voices from Tributes still in the Arena clutters the air around her, makes her tense, throws off her vigilance and turns it into paranoia. She tries to wander through her patrol here as quickly as possible, limping along, dragging her foot slightly.
She hears a familiar voice and her head snaps up. She shouldn't be surprised to see footage of Enjolras, but she's surprised that it's of him and Maximus, because until now she's only seem images of at least one Tribute still in the Game. She realizes when she looks beyond him, at the triangle of background behind his shoulder and curls, and sees that the Training Center is closed. That this was recorded during the Games. This is close to real-time.
She's watching the footage so closely she doesn't hear Wyatt enter. When she tears her face (reddened, under her slash) away from the screen, she jumps slightly as she sees him, his eyes also on the two pixel-borne faces growing more heated as they fight.
WHAT| Venus kills Topher and chats with Wyatt about their dumb (pseudo-)boyfriends.
WHEN| Week 5
WHERE| Fourth floor
WARNINGS| Death by impalement.
Her route through the east wing of the fourth floor gets shaken up every day or so. She's never been one for routine, and furthermore she doesn't want anyone pulling a videogame maneuver and waiting on her to turn a corner to run past her and head for the cafe. Having Sherlock get past her shook her enough.
Today she goes through the hall with the elevators, a chamber full of fossilized dinosaur eggs, and ends up in the huge room with the prehistoric animals. The ribcage of the whale above her reminds her of a claw machine at an arcade, about to lower down and snatch her up while her leg is injured and she's all vulnerable.
She stops when she sees someone turn a corner in front of her - just the heel of a shoe, but enough for her to follow. Covering the slash on her face with one hand and taking the knife in her other, she pads after Topher into the dinosaur exhibit.
-/-
She doesn't like walking by the movie theater screen here. The chatter of voices from Tributes still in the Arena clutters the air around her, makes her tense, throws off her vigilance and turns it into paranoia. She tries to wander through her patrol here as quickly as possible, limping along, dragging her foot slightly.
She hears a familiar voice and her head snaps up. She shouldn't be surprised to see footage of Enjolras, but she's surprised that it's of him and Maximus, because until now she's only seem images of at least one Tribute still in the Game. She realizes when she looks beyond him, at the triangle of background behind his shoulder and curls, and sees that the Training Center is closed. That this was recorded during the Games. This is close to real-time.
She's watching the footage so closely she doesn't hear Wyatt enter. When she tears her face (reddened, under her slash) away from the screen, she jumps slightly as she sees him, his eyes also on the two pixel-borne faces growing more heated as they fight.
no subject
(If you dare to assume that I have done anything less than taken his affections and returned them...)
"I don't know him," Wyatt rumbled, his usual drawl clipped in the vise of his jaw. Wyatt knew him only in the distant way any of them knew the victors, their faces impossible escape - that one's especially, with the new statue sitting in the Tower lobby. "Where exactly does he get off even tryin'--"
(...you sell Monsieur Earp short. He is in more of a place to use you than you are him.)
He jerked, spine straightening and stiffening sharply, as if someone had just stuck him in the back with a sharp, hot blade.
no subject
Hypocritical, maybe, but there's a difference between counseling a friend and approaching a stranger.
She feels a sinkhole in her chest, one that seems to suck her flesh tighter than even the broken ribs. She needs to be stable to deal with all of this. She needs to be able to deal with her relationships with the same ease she approaches a stage or killing field or any combination of the two. Fucking tears start to leak. And her nose. She sniffs.
"Well, Wyatt, I hope you're not judging me by association right now."
no subject
Wyatt could have told her those things, and more, but his throat was too tight. Too dry. He heard her sniff, saw the movement, the wet glinting off her cheek in the shifting light, but he could do nothing about that either.
He could only stand there, a statue of mangled flesh and aching bone, as the clip played on. Max's cold decree, the stranger's hollow apology.
The little flicker as the scene reset, started again.
Finally, finally, he was unable to unstick his jaw. His blue eyes shifting over to land on her face.
"I don't know you either," he said. "But I know what ya did for Max. That's the only thing I judge ya on."
no subject
"Good. I watch the Games, so I feel like I can judge that you're a pretty decent person." She wants to talk about Ellie, but that brings more tears, and she takes a moment to compose herself and fan at her face with her hand. Glittery pink nails flash in the screen light. "I saw what you did for Ellie. She's a friend too."
It feels gross, namedropping like she's trading currency, but she feels it's necessary to underscore what she says next. To make the heart in her voice sound as genuine as it is.
"Thank you, for saving her. That's how Enj won, you know. He was trying to protect her and was too late. And that's all I'll defend him with right now."
no subject
"Well, that's good of him," he acknowledged, but his face didn't soften. "But I'll still be damned if those lies of his'll be the last word said before I die."
He couldn't say for certain when this little spat had occurred, but it didn't really matter. He couldn't be there, couldn't talk to Max himself, couldn't make sure Max knew....
He'd have to use the cameras. Hope they'd show it, hope Max was watching.
(If might have been better, to let Max think the worst of him, to let anger replace loss if - when - he didn't return, but he couldn't let it be. Selfishly, he didn't want to die wondering if Max doubted him.)
no subject
Waximus is one of their most popular cash cows, if the merchandise in the gift shop is anything to go by. Venus knows how this works - they'll wait until the popularity wanes before adding real death to the mix.
"Trust me. I'm not just teasing. I work in this business." She doubts that's going to help her much in Wyatt's esteem, but it's honest.
no subject
A man who'd ignored the rules so consistently. A trouble-maker who'd been banded with a traitor's mark.
"I know what happens to the odds, every time ya come into these things. I know I might not get any other chance... an' I don't want him thinkin' I didn't mean it."
no subject
"Anyway, Max doesn't look like that's what he's thinking. Give him some credit. You two are peas in a pod." She raises her fingers up in a tight '2'. "You don't want to waste time feeling bad towards other people when you can feel bad about yourself."
no subject
Like telling Howard the Capitol might take them both, if they made it to the end.
What little faith he had left, after all this time here, he didn't put in the Capitol.
"It ain't a waste if it's true."
no subject
She holds a hand out. "Anyway. Since I'd rather not kill people I respect or get on Max's bad side, do you have allies you want me to keep away from?"
no subject
After all his encounters with Shepard, it was nice. Refreshing even.
"Howard Bassem," he told her, reaching out to take her hand in his. Sealing both deals. The one spoken, and the one not. "District One, young fella, 'bout so high--" He held up his other hand to measure Howard's height. "He's one'a mine."
Ellie, she already knew about, and Max, who wasn't here. The rest off the top of his head, like Ellie, were all already out.
no subject
She frowns, her gaze settling on something behind Wyatt. She's well aware that doesn't stop some people, and that's where the difference between her and so many of the other killers lie. Between people like her and Max, and people like Aunamee and Alpha.
"I hope you'll extend the same courtesy to Kankri, but I can't see you wanting to kill a harmless kid under any circumstances. He's one of the trolls, about this high, little horns like this." She makes a gesture at her chest height, and then of little devil horns.
no subject
He nodded without even having to think about it.
"I've managed to avoid havin' to hurt anyone this round," he said, releasing her hand and returning his palm to the hilt of the revolver - out of habit more than any sort of willful intention. "I certainly ain't gunna start now with a child."
Of any sort.
A beat passed, their moment of understanding a strange echo to the raised voices on the screen, then he spoke again. A soft, rumbling request. One he'd been chewing over for a while, but hadn't found anyone he trusted with it. No one who would understand.
He'd just met Venus, but in just these few moments he felt a kinship. She'd been there, she knew.
"...If it does go the other way, you'll keep an' eye on him for me?"
no subject
She holds her hand out.
(Max's voice in the background makes her cringe. Talking about how she feels as if it's something fragile and porcelain that needs to be treated carefully.)
no subject
"An' him?" he asked, the pale blue eyes flicking over her shoulder to the man on the screen and back again. "If that guarantee ain't as solid as ya made it out to be?"
no subject
She raises her eyes over Wyatt's shoulder. It's not that she and Max are that close, though she does care about him - it's not that she cares enough for him to die for him - it's that she can't imagine dying to a more worthy opponent, should Max get sent to the Arena. As such, any battle won't end with her victory intended. And keeping him alive to win again is a perfectly suitable result for her.
As for the Capitol...
"Someone has to keep an eye on all the people who can't figure out how to turn on their communicators, anyway."
no subject
"Thank ya." He nodded again and released her.
He looked at the screen again, still unhappy with the exchange playing out there. Wishing there was more that he could do than watch.
Wishing he could be back there.
...What would he give for this woman to be right.
"Good luck," he told her, pulling his gaze away again. "I -- hope things work out for ya, with you an' yer friend there."
Just because Wyatt wanted to wring his scrawny neck, didn't mean he couldn't see that Max was right. It wasn't politics for her either.
no subject
She waves slightly as she limps off, continuing her patrol. She decides that she doesn't mind having Wyatt in her territory. The worst he can do is help.