Where is the Crack? When Did I Crack? [Closed]

[celebrityskinned]

WHO| Venus Dee Milo, Courfeyrac and Kankri Vantas; Venus Dee Milo and Christopher Chareau de Red; Venus, De and Kevin
WHAT| Fourth floor cafe bonding times; Venus kills Christopher; triple mutual destruction.
WHEN| Early Week 6
WHERE| Fourth floor and beyond
WARNINGS| Death. Lots of death.

The benefits of their little cafe have worn thin. The food is gone now, except the few rations that they've set aside - and those, originally stored for just two, are now being split between three, although neither she nor Kankri complain. Venus is just glad to keep an eye on Courfeyrac, and sleep a bit easier knowing neither he nor Kankri is sitting up alone.

Venus can't help but think of her first Arena, how surprised she was to see so many people so completely unequipped to handle the Games. Given the circumstances, both Kankri and Courfeyrac are holding up alright, although the toll is showing in both of them. She worries. She aches in places she didn't know she kept inside her during her first Arena. It's deeper than sympathy, than some regret that skates by only intellectually.

She wonders if it's just because she's depressed. She no longer feels as if she's in a fog; now she feels as if she occupies every muscle of her body, every ache and pain, every drop of sweat, every smooth brush of tile against her skin. She occupies her body and little else, she feels. Every soft whisper of the gift shop blanket against her cheek as she sleeps. She is inside her flesh and inside her bones and inside the warm, wet viscera of the human form.

She gets up now, having rested a good few hours, and finds that Courfeyrac's keeping watch while Kankri must have dozed off. She accidentally wakes him as she rises from her little bed in the pantry, stretches her arms and walks out to the cafe counter, from which they can watch for anyone coming or going.

"How're you holding up, champ?" she asks Courfeyrac.

-/-

She's tired of waiting. Now's no longer the time to try and draw it out - the sooner the Arena ends, especially now that guns are involved, the better her odds of her little trio making it to the finale. As such, Venus has gone hunting. She may see a difference between murdering and preying on someone, but looking for people and killing them has never been off-limits.

The last few weeks have, oddly-enough, been kind to the slash across her face. It isn't healed entirely, but it's better off than it was, now a thick, jagged red and black line instead of a gaping wound. She finally beat the infection in her leg, and as such is roaming around with slightly less of a limp than before.

When she sees someone (Christopher - new, not someone she knows, not someone she cares to know at the moment) the first thing she does is pull out a knife and start walking towards him. She strides with intent that evident in how cold the expression on her maimed face is.

-/-

That she's beaten up from killing Christopher doesn't stop her. She puts herself back together as much as she can, ripping the mask off her face in a way that leaves blood dripping down her cheeks, chin and neck, over her collarbone and seeping into her shirt. She tosses the thing aside after breaking it, hoping it won't be useful to anyone else.

She doesn't go back to the cafe, not yet. She doesn't feel finished. Some part of her knows she should rest, should go back and let Kankri and Courfeyrac patch her wounds, but the rest of her is so deeply tired of needing to be tended to. She needs to rush this game to the end.

It's in this state that she runs into De. Their eyes meet, one at each side of the room. Both ragged, both worse for wear, both desperate women with every nerve inside them pulled taut. Venus pauses, just for a second, allowing De to dictate what the first move is.

Comments

[inhumanity]

Christopher has spent too much of his life in violence not to understand exactly what situation faces him. Violent intent is tangible; it sings in the blood, hums in the electric potential of ready muscles. The woman before him intends on killing him, and she has a knife.

I don't want to die. It's the instinct that has been screaming through his head since he was first created. Fifty years is a long time for a scream to build into a relentless purpose. But something new has been added to it in the last year: I don't want to kill.

Isn't it more fun to fight without having to kill? Christopher likes living in a world where survival isn't always on the line. He doesn't want to give that up. Not for these pathetic, worthless humans running this parody of Nature's will.

Where Venus's expression is cold, Christopher greets her with warmth and serenity, his rows of fangs bared in a gentle smile. "My, what spirit before me. Is that an invitation to dance? Well, I don't really want to, but if you insist on it, then I have the right to insist as well. Let's be friends."

Everything about his posture speaks to that calm peacefulness. Nothing in it indicates the broken glass he has tucked up under his sleeve, or the speed at which he can shift from calm friendliness to carnivalesque violence.

[celebrityskinned]

She likes that he responds with ease. In a way, it settles her conscience. She's going up against someone either skilled enough or crazy enough to be at peace with his death, and there's a comfort in knowing she isn't robbing anyone of anything.

This is a fair battle. This isn't picking off children and weaklings like the Capitol seems so keen on. This is gladiatorial combat, and she's made for it.

"I'm not much of a dancer." She picks up speed, her stalk turning into a rush in the last few steps. The blade in her hand glints as it catches light from the outside. Her lips pull back to reveal her toothpaste-commercial smile, not one of eagerness for blood but one of satisfaction with this matchup.

She aims for his neck.

[inhumanity]

Before she breaks into a rush, he knows how he could respond. He knows how he might kick, try to slip under her guard, flick the glass into his palm and go for her throat or her stomach. He knows that he could make an attack of it and try to hurt her before she gets to him.

Christopher jumps.

It's an circus-worthy move, all the flashier for the understated motion as he twists in the air so that he'll face her when he lands. All he wants is to clear well over her head (wouldn't want her to try to attack him while he's moving) and land behind her, far away enough that she won't be able to get him in an easy twist. He doesn't want to harm her. He just wants to live.

And make a friend, obviously.

"Nonsense! Our synergy is apparent from the start. Tell me, is there a favourite kind of song you like to sing?" He still smiles with that insistent, serene friendliness. He is very determined.

(She is clearly competent. That badly injured, and still moving so well? She is hardly a low level fighter. Christopher himself is doing well to mask his own injury, but he knows how much harder it is to win a fight against someone who has the killer's instinct. That kind of fight can't be won without a lot of luck or a large different in ability, and he isn't so sure he has enough of either.)

[celebrityskinned]

For a moment, Venus feels as if she's not actually a part of this action - as if she's a Panem citizen watching the Games, gasping in delight at Christopher's dramatic and unexpected leap. A half-second later, that translates to her in the time and place she is: Christopher is more of a threat than she realized.

She somersaults forward, getting down to the ground so she can avoid a swing at her back. It means she takes the brunt of the impact with the floor to her shoulder.

"I have a record deal for some dancefloor remixes!" she grunts as she gets back up, and it's a rather unladylike sound, not the usual saucy lilt she adopts when speaking on camera. For a moment she's vulnerable, her body stooping against a will even as strong as hers, muscles in her torso pulled tight by the pain of her broken ribs.

She has to get to the second floor, she realizes. They're on the third now. The masks are her "I'm not left-handed" ace in the hole.

[inhumanity]

Even as confident as he is, he knows better than to walk over to help her. There is confidence, and there is suicide. He laughs warmly at her comment. "Wow, is that possible here? I ought to make an effort myself! I'm a singer, you know. Not professionally, but when my heart calls out to the world around me, I can't let a thing like that get in the way!"

And he doesn't move to attack her, not once. His hands stay at his side, now. He is ready to defend himself. But he certainly isn't going to attack or pursue, not when she's already so badly injured that a real effort from Christopher could hurt her chances with her next opponent. Even if they are resurrected when the fight is done, these are not Nebula Sky's incomplete immortals. The pain Venus is showing right now is proof of it.

[celebrityskinned]

"So not a professional?" she pants, and she lets the air fill up her cramped lungs again. She doesn't let her injuries give him much of a respite from her assault. As soon as she's got a full breath she's running back for him, charging like a bull, like a train bearing down the tracks. Trying to push him towards the stairwell door, if she can't finish it quickly.

[inhumanity]

"Talented amateur!"

The jump won't work twice, he knows, but there might be an advantage in the stairs so he gives her what she wants, dodging back with a theatrical, "Woah!" before springing himself through the door and up onto the stair railing. He nimbly dodges up along the rail, hoping that her injuries make it too risky for her to join him up there, giving him the chance to limit how she can attack him. At the very least, dancing an the edge like this is more fun.

He doesn't stop chattering away the whole while.

"In fact, I don't do anything professionally. I reject the whole concept of profession! Let's open the doors to a world of amateurs, free of certificates, free of government oversight, free of corporate brokers of wealth and fame. Welcome to a world of communism! Wait, sorry, we're all out of equality between people, so welcome, welcome, bellum omnium contra omnes instead! My name is Christopher Chareau de Red—what's yours?"

[libertin]

He doesn't feel at ease in the cafe, not that he felt any better back in the nest of fossils he'd called home for the past few weeks. He hasn't felt alive in the last few days, either. Every since taking two lives back to back, he's worried that his humanity has been stripped away entirely. Shooting his gun in Paris hadn't felt the same as shooting his gun in the barricade of the Arena. Somehow, it felt a lot worse.

"I was thinking I should pray. I used to pray for my poor, immortal soul all the time. It seems quite useless now, wouldn't you agree?" He shakes his head, staring out into the nothingness around the cafe. "I apologize. I am not bitter, only exhausted."

[celebrityskinned]

She leans back against the counter, wiping her fingertips under her eyes to take away the mascara that smudged a little as she slept.

She doesn't know what kind of hell Courfeyrac's in. She can barely remember the first time she killed intentionally. Unintentionally is a different matter, and she knows that that's why her first murder instead of her first accident was so uneventful. All in the job of heroing, Delilah, her agent had said, that's why it's called reality TV. And he'd been right. The would-be child predator she'd fried didn't stain her soul at all.

"You and me both. You'd think that Marius and Enj could have sent us something that would put us to sleep and not leave us hungover." The wine had left one hell of a headache. She would kill someone for Valium. Then again, she's been killing for less lately. "You'd be...Catholic, right? I grew up Lutheran."

[libertin]

"Oh yes. I am, without a doubt, Catholic." Not that he's ever been a very good one. It is, for him, more of a cultural institution than a religious one. That said, part of him still believes, and part of him wishes to be a better and more faithful man. It would have pleased his mother. And maybe, if he had been more devout, he would have experienced something besides the blank spaces of nothing he'd received when he died. "I am simply a very bad one. I do not listen to authority. I give in to lust. I kill people. And I do, on occasion, wonder whether or not God exists. It is all fairly unremarkable, I fear."

He turns to look at the camp that has been made of the cafe. It is suitable, not unpleasant, but it lacks much of the security that he felt in walls of fossils.

"I won't pray for myself, but I shall say something kind for you and your little Kankri."

[celebrityskinned]

"Well, I'll say a little prayer for you. Someone has to." She puts her hand over Courfeyrac's in a gesture of solidarity. "Even though I ain't been praying much since I was a little girl. I got my whole crisis of faith out of the way when I was a teenager."

Arguably, she had some pretty good reasons. And Kankri, now awake, is all too aware of them, and she throws him a glance to tell him not to elaborate. Not that he will, after their last fight.

[libertin]

His gaze falls over to where Kankri had been sleeping before and he narrows his eyes as he tries to make out the troll's silhouette in the darkness.

"It happens to us all, I fear. Questioning our faith is a rite of passage." He takes Venus' hand in his and gives it a firm squeeze. "Come, I fear we are bringing down the mood. I'm sure Kankri finds this conversation trying."

[privilegecheck]

"I don't appreciate you talking about me as if I'm not here," Kankri grouses, grumpy from lack of sleep and being so suddenly roused. It doesn't help that he feels like Courfeyrac is patronizing him, either; he's had more than enough of that. "And I'll thank you not to assume things for me. To be honest, I doubt anything you have to say could be worse than this place is already."

He yawns, rubbing his eyes. For him it's no trouble to see the other two; trolls are naturally nocturnal, after all. He gets two bottles of water and comes to the counter, offering one to each of the other two.

[not_cocked]

Not this bitch again.

De's lips pull up in a snarl as soon as she sees Venus. It's nothing personal, really. Just pure survival instincts at this point. Sam is gone, thanks to her, and apparently it's fate that they face off, or some bullshit like that.

She just knows she's tired of seeing her face.

Gripping her sword tightly, she eyes Venus over. They both look like shit, but this time she might be in a little bit better shape.

Good.

"Long time no see." She said with a grin that was more teeth than cheer. Lifting up her sword, she arched a brow at Venus. "Having fun?"

And then she rushed her, not planning to play games.

[celebrityskinned]

"I'd be having more fun without the broken ankle," she says. Her ankle isn't really broken, but she'd rather De underestimate her, bank on a false hope, than approach her accurately. But then De makes the first move, which actually surprises Venus. Surprises her so much that though she avoids the sword, she doesn't avoid De's momentum.

De hits her and knocks the wind out of her, and Venus feels white-hot pain shoot from her broken ribs down every nerve, every fingertip, in the pulp of her teeth. But she yields to it intentionally, twisting back and throwing De over her and to the ground, so that both will land on all fours.

[not_cocked]

Broken ankle? She'd take it. Though she was powering through that ankle, apparently. Still, she felt satisfaction as she saw the pain in venus face when she hit her.

Grunting as the air was knocked out of her, she didn't take the time to catch her breath again, scrambling up and going for Venus again. The other woman was already starting up, and she wasn't hesitating this time.

[celebrityskinned]

Venus forsakes getting the higher ground for speed, and as such she attacks from under De, weeping low with her leg and grabbing De's wrist, using her back to slam De against the hallway wall behind them.

They're beyond words. Every blow to Venus' chest, whether by De's move or Venus', is agonizing. De's stunned for half a second and Venus takes it, grabbing De by the hair and slamming her head into the wall.

[not_cocked]

The movement leaves her momentarily stunned, her eye sight blacking out, and she has to fight to stop from losing consciousness altogether. Biting her tongue, she uses the new pain to snap herself back, and swings her elbow back, hoping to catch whatever it was in Venus' torso that was causing her so much discomfort.

She let out a guttural cry as she twisted away, knowing some of her hair was going to go with Venus, but also know she wasn't staying like this.

[celebrityskinned]

De's elbow strikes Venus in the pelvis, and she sinks her fist tighter over De's hair, dragging the woman up from behind, using her own back against the wall as leverage. Something's broken inside her, something snapped in her hip when De hit her, not bone but something internal. There's blood running down Venus' leg.

DEATH

[celebrityskinned]

Teleporting takes energy. Venus chose forty feet up - exactly, because her teleportation is always exact, a wish she can make reality - because she figured it wouldn't be too high to bounce off the dome but would still give her time to escape before she hit the roof.

She was wrong about the roof. The glass pane blasts apart beneath her, but she manages to bounce the half-second after that, managing to piece a wish together in her mind. Fourth floor cafe, fourth floor cafe. Taking some of the glass with her, she outruns the sixth floor, but she can't outrun her own momentum.

She lands on her feet. She also breaks all her bones up to her mid-back doing so.

She snaps into being in a blast of light, ten feet above the floor, and slams into the ground. The mask flies off her face as her head cracks against the counter of the cafe, as glass rains down around her. A sound bursts from her throat, not a cry or a groan but simply a noise from air being shoved out by impact.

She's looking at the ceiling and blood is pooling around her, in her hair, in her clothes, in her mouth. She blinks a bit and thinks there might be glass in her eye. Then she thinks it's funny she's thinking that.

Then she thinks it's funny thinking at all right now.

[privilegecheck]

Kankri is watching their territory, trying not too get too frustrated from the boredom of it. This Arena has been long hours of boredom and hunger punctuated by short moments of pure terror, and after five weeks of this it's wearing on him.

Then Venus blasts into being just to his right, and he'd be wishing for boredom again if he wasn't so utterly focused on his friend. He's on his feet and rushing to her immediately, and oh god, oh god, she's so hurt, he has to patch this up but how?

He races into the pantry, grabs the remaining medical supplies, and then stumbles back out, kneeling next to her. "Venus, you're going to be okay, I'll figure it out, okay?" He fumbles in the kit, comes out with some of the many makeshift bandages he's made, and tries to wipe off her wounds. There's so much blood, and it's so red, and what is he even going to do?

"Courfeyrac!" he screams desperately, not caring if anyone else is around to hear. "Please come here, you've got to help, Venus is hurt!"

[libertin]

The nap he'd been taking ends so abruptly that Courfeyrac doesn't even recall that he'd been asleep. He's a flurry of motion, stumbling helplessly toward the broken and bleeding mess that Kankri is insisting is Venus. It doesn't look at all like Venus. It looks more like a wax figure, broken and oozing its liquid insides.

"This cannot be!" He stands there stupidly for a moment, watching Kankri struggle with the bandages. Instantly he recognizes the futility in it. There would be no saving Venus now, not with so much of her blood gone.

He has to be gentle, diplomatic about this, slow in his approach toward them. Venus is dying. She's going to slowly suffer and die and the only thing to do for her is to ease her pain and make it quick. Guiltily, he looks back at his pistol, sitting a few feet away, next to their makeshift bed.

"We cannot save her, Kankri." His voice is hoarse, but he is determined. "Venus, my darling girl, I am so sorry, but we cannot save you."

[celebrityskinned]

Voices are coming from somewhere, and as she puts together the entirety of what happened. She must not have caught herself in time. Something about her powers being new again or having been injured when she went into the first jump or simply miscalculating how high she could fall from meant she couldn't rebalance herself during transport. It's a rookie mistake, one she made in her teenage years when she was learning, but she didn't have a human body then. There weren't bones to break or organs to crush.

She has never hated herself as much as she does in this moment, as Kankri shoves bandages at her, as he looks at hands covered in blood and cannot find where to stop the bleeding. At the guilt in Courfeyrac's eyes, aging him a good twenty years older than his body, aging his soul even further.

She should have fallen to her death on the roof. She shouldn't have put them through this; her selfish need to not to be alone, or her stupid inability to account for gravity, neither are an excuse for this.

"Kind of f-figured." Her voice dribbles like silt from her mouth, barely audible. It sounds like sand being crushed under a metal plate. One eye tracks Kankri's face, then Courfeyrac's. The other doesn't move at all, but is a shard-cut bloodied pulp. She chokes and coughs on something, but it's weak, not enough to do more than twitch her throat a bit.

"Honey, I'm, I'm s-sorry..." She should tell them that it doesn't hurt, but she promised Kankri not to lie. It does hurt. It hurts on a separate plane from normal agony, something that seems entirely beyond conceptualizing. It is. She can't feel how her body exists in space and yet she knows pain. It's pain without the intermediary of actually being part of a body, of having capacity or knowing what room you take up or feeling temperature or position.

She isn't sure who she was talking to anymore, so she focuses for the next words. To Courfeyrac. Her last words.

"Do it."

She closes her eyes for their sake.

[privilegecheck]

"No," Kankri protests. "No, I'm going to save you, I'll find something, I can do it, I can, I..."

The bleeding won't stop. All he can do now is hug her close and sob, ugly jagged sobs as he cries red tears onto her red bandages.

"Please don't," he begs. "Please."

[libertin]

"Kankri..." He can feel his heart breaking. He can feel his nerve starting to disappear. He knows he has to pull that trigger before his cowardice returns. "Let go of her, Kankri. Let her go. I will not let her suffer."

Before he even realizes what he is doing, he's grabbed the gun from the floor and is standing over the troll and the woman clutched to his bosom. He lets Kankri cry for a moment longer before, with the last glimpse of his gentleness, he moves to pry the troll away from her.

"We will see her when we wake, my friend. Now please, do not make her suffer another moment more."