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)
thearena2014-08-20 01:45 am
celebrityskinned) wrote in thearena2014-08-20 01:45 am
Entry tags:
Nowhere to Hide, In Your Dreams You Are Useless [Open]
WHO| Venus Dee Milo and anyone in the Arena!
WHAT| Venus finds the food court the first night.
WHEN| First night.
WHERE| Food court.
WARNINGS| Mentions of torture, violence and mutilation, plus some dark mental stuff.
She finds the food court on the first night, and for a few moments allows a little spark of hope to catch the tinder in her chest. She and Kankri did well in the cafe for several weeks back at the museum; there might be food there, a stockpile she can jealously guard. More importantly, there might be people.
She doesn't know who among her allies might have been exploded. The entire thing was too fast for her to keep track of which people were reduced to bloody splinters and chips of bone, droplets and chunks across the ice. She'd gone straight for a key and tried to find Kankri, Joly, Ellie, even the boys - but in the tumult, in people's scrambles away from the killing field and to identify their loved ones, she didn't even see if they were among the living.
To be honest, she isn't sure who her allies are anymore. Maybe it's better they haven't seen her like this up close, with bruises festering purple and sickly brown on her neck and arms and bare legs. Her face, usually the envy of skin cream models and makeup artists, is a wound. The brand that sprawls across her cheek, nose and upper lip looks rotten, and the yellowed skin withers away from the edges, where painfully raw flesh beneath peeks out. The juxtaposition of her current state and the daintily-beaded, sequined spandex outfit she's wearing doesn't escape her.
She has a baseball bat from the sporting goods store. She holds it close but not cocked as she starts to go through the metal cabinets behind each buffet line. She pauses occasionally to look over her shoulder, but she doesn't take much care to hide the clatters of metal on metal. She's alright with being found, so long as she can act on it.
Thirty minutes going through each kitchen station yields nothing. Nothing but the hiss of oil in the fryer, spitting at her.
She takes a seat behind the cash register at the Panda Pantry. Her figure skates are dangling around her neck, resting against her chest. She folds up her legs, lets her palms take in the coolness of the tile on the floor. There are no victories for her here - not in the Arena, not in Panem.
She would cry if she weren't on camera, or if she weren't so good at swallowing it down by now, but she's had a human body for over a year now. She knows how to keep it to herself.
WHAT| Venus finds the food court the first night.
WHEN| First night.
WHERE| Food court.
WARNINGS| Mentions of torture, violence and mutilation, plus some dark mental stuff.
She finds the food court on the first night, and for a few moments allows a little spark of hope to catch the tinder in her chest. She and Kankri did well in the cafe for several weeks back at the museum; there might be food there, a stockpile she can jealously guard. More importantly, there might be people.
She doesn't know who among her allies might have been exploded. The entire thing was too fast for her to keep track of which people were reduced to bloody splinters and chips of bone, droplets and chunks across the ice. She'd gone straight for a key and tried to find Kankri, Joly, Ellie, even the boys - but in the tumult, in people's scrambles away from the killing field and to identify their loved ones, she didn't even see if they were among the living.
To be honest, she isn't sure who her allies are anymore. Maybe it's better they haven't seen her like this up close, with bruises festering purple and sickly brown on her neck and arms and bare legs. Her face, usually the envy of skin cream models and makeup artists, is a wound. The brand that sprawls across her cheek, nose and upper lip looks rotten, and the yellowed skin withers away from the edges, where painfully raw flesh beneath peeks out. The juxtaposition of her current state and the daintily-beaded, sequined spandex outfit she's wearing doesn't escape her.
She has a baseball bat from the sporting goods store. She holds it close but not cocked as she starts to go through the metal cabinets behind each buffet line. She pauses occasionally to look over her shoulder, but she doesn't take much care to hide the clatters of metal on metal. She's alright with being found, so long as she can act on it.
Thirty minutes going through each kitchen station yields nothing. Nothing but the hiss of oil in the fryer, spitting at her.
She takes a seat behind the cash register at the Panda Pantry. Her figure skates are dangling around her neck, resting against her chest. She folds up her legs, lets her palms take in the coolness of the tile on the floor. There are no victories for her here - not in the Arena, not in Panem.
She would cry if she weren't on camera, or if she weren't so good at swallowing it down by now, but she's had a human body for over a year now. She knows how to keep it to herself.
no subject
That moment of distraction where Alex's eyes flicker over to Clara is what gives Venus that opening.
His hand closes over the bat, his graphene fingers clenching, metal squealing as he jerks the bat out of Venus's hands and sends it flying. He's just off balance enough that she catches him before his stabilizers kick in - a second later and they would've slammed into place and he couldn't have been budged no matter how much she pulled. The hot oil hits his face before Alex can get the other hand braced against the side of the fryer. By the time he jerks himself free, Venus is gone, his HUD is wigging out about the burns to his face, and hot oil drips down the jagged edges of his visor. It doesn't occur to him to try to wash it off. The damage isn't life threatening, but there is a probability he may lose vision in one eye, even so. Alex is confident OmniCorp will fix that. They salvaged his face from the car-bomb, therefore this should be easy in comparison. It's not even his original eye.
Besides, what should've been agonizing pain is reduced to discomfort, the connection that should've had him screaming neatly cut. Cyborgs take hot oil baths like a champ, apparently.
Alex turns to face Clara, his face already bright red and glistening in that unnatural way burns do. He looks head-on at the bleeding socket where Clara's eye should have been and doesn't flinch. The nausea doesn't rise in throat. What he does do is put markers where the bloody footprints go so he can follow up on Venus.
"Don't obstruct a police officer again, understood?" Alex steps closer, reaching to confiscate the knife. While he can accept she took it in self-defense, it's still theft if she keeps it. "I don't want to pacify you."
Not when Clara Murphy had such a clean record.
no subject
Which doesn't stop that small panicked feeling from rising up in her chest when she sees the burns on Alex's face. Compared to the way he looked after the bombing, they're downright mild, but it still hurts to see him like this, even if he won't acknowledge that he's hurting. She considers looking for a cloth to try to at least clean him up with the slightest bit until he starts talking.
"I was trying to help you," Clara says hoarsely. "I'm not sure if you've forgotten it, but that's what people do for their loved ones." And once she notices that he's reaching for the knife, she steps back, clutching to it. "Could you please take me to Dr. Norton? I need to see him."
no subject
He steps closer, towering over Clara and between the hot oil dripping off his face and the blisters starting to form, the dead, flattened look in his eyes, and he looks like something wearing her husband's face. He comes closer and closer and his hand reaches out - he leads this time with his flesh hand, the hot oil still splattered across his armored one and still capable of burning Clara. His skin brushes against Clara's fingers as he takes the knife gently but firmly. He pivots, scans for the knife rack on the counter, and slides it back in. Alex grabs a rag to wipe the hot oil off his chassis before he turns back to Clara.
"Since EMTs don't seem to be on their way, I'll carry you to Dr. Norton. He may be able to assist you while I look for your assailant." Alex fixes a stare, looking at Clara's face instead of gaping at the eye socket. It's not the worst injury in his database. Plenty of other Detroit civilians have learned to live with injuries such as this. Clara Murphy will learn too.
He bends down and easily lifts his wife, bridal-style. There's no bracing himself, no joking about getting old. He just comes down and comes up, Clara pressed against graphene plating that smells strongly of fryer oil.