thearena | Hair done, nails done, everything did

Entry tags:

Hair done, nails done, everything did

Who| Molotov Cocktease and you?????
What| Just a touch of R&R and maybe also some bloodthirst. They go hand-in-hand.
Where| Glamor Nail
When| Week 2, Day 4
Warnings/Notes| Drinking, lookin' fly, copious nail polish fumes that can be annoying

Molotov was actually... marginally disappointed. So far, the only real violence she'd seen was at the Cornucopia, with the explosions -- everything else seemed fairly tame. Maybe it had to do with everyone hiding all the time, making nests in their various little corners of the mall until they were forced to actually fight.

But she didn't want to start a war while she was so severely outnumbered. She'd heard about a few injuries starting to occur, and she figured that would start knocking down the numbers soon enough. There were things to occupy the time, of course -- hoarding supplies (she'd had to upgrade from a backpack to a duffel after the sponsor gifts started rolling in), hoarding food from the daily frenzy in the food court, threatening everyone who got close to her. She was still on the hunt for a pair of thigh-high red boots, but she was making do with a few pairs of black heels for now.

By now, she's managed to pick out the stores that garner the least amount of attention, mostly because they don't have real supplies in them, only bric-a-brac useless for fighting. But that didn't make the stores completely worthless, now did it?

Blaires Accessories turned out to hold a wealth of flashy jewelry, Molotov's favorite kind, and she picked up some massive gold heart-shaped hoop earrings and a bunch of rings. There were hairbrushes and decorative hair bits, and she commandeered a mirror to tie her hair up in a black scarf with red hearts. Some off-brand red lipstick and black eyeliner (both spot tested on the back of her hand for potential skin-burning effects) helped her feel like she wasn't an uncivilized cavewoman.

Next door, though, was what she really wanted.

Glamor Nails may reek of chemicals, but Molotov is a vain woman, and the scent of nail shops is nothing foreign to her. She takes her time painting her nails red, but her real goal lies toward the back of the shop, in the big leather chairs attached to the foot baths. She's not aiming for a pedicure so she doesn't fill the basin, but when she finally drops her kit bag next to her and leans back in the chair, it's with a low groan and an almost orgasmic, "Oh."

The massage on these things is powerful as hell, which is good because Molotov has enough tension for five people in her back, and she's got bottles of gin to aid in this relaxation. So now she sits in the nail salon, nearly melted in her chair, with alcohol and a boxed salad from lunch on her lap.

Now this... this is a death arena that Molotov can get used to.

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"I might."

He starts to wander, doing a very convincing job of looking completely casual while never entirely turning his back to her.

"Where'd you find the drink, lass? I've been outright parched for something to take the edge off, here." He checks the chemicals in a tiny bottle of blue nail polish. Nothing he can use. Damn.

She snorts and crosses her legs, one ankle over the other, as she keeps watching him.

"This? Sponsor gift," she says, shaking the bottle a bit, then stretches down into her bag to produce another. "I got a few, must be from doing those liquor ads. Next time, I'll do a flamethrower ad, make the arena a bit shorter. Well, I would if I were going to go through another arena."

The spare bottle gets tossed up, flipped and caught, and she smiles at him. "Now what is it you have to bargain with, Mr. Cassidy?"

Hmm. Tom strokes his goatee. He hasn't received any Sponsor gifts thus far, and isn't sure if he should be concerned about that. There are, after all, quite a few Tributes in this Arena competing for screen times.

"Expertise in explosions. And-" he holds up a finger, in case she says she also has that skill set. "-the requisite materials to put that to use."

Well, Molotov leapt early on her screen time -- by the end of her first day in the Capitol, she was in talks for ads, interviews, and a fashion line. It pays to be business savvy in a world that loves to play with publicity. She's not even really sure what her Escort is for, at this point, except maybe keeping up the flow while she's in the arena.

"And how much material are you willing to trade for this bottle?" Molotov actually does have expertise in explosions, but she's been a bit more hands-on here, as C-4 did not appear to be something they sell in the department store. "Or do you plan to do me a favor with it and off half my competition?"

"In fact, I was a bit fond of the idea of cutting the playing field down a bit." He raises his eyebrow and sits in one of the massage chairs, resting his cane horizontally across his knees. "And while I wouldn't mind a drink, I'm not so desperate as to barter for it."

Time to get to business.

"It's clear we're both professionals. I want immunity from whatever killing spree you decide to go on until at least another twenty of our comrades slip from this mortal coil. In exchange, I'll warn you when and where the bombs will go off, and you can do with that information what you see fit."

Molotov shrugs, takes a drink, and nods. "Done. Twenty others gone before we go at each other," she says, arching her eyebrow. "Now why don't you tell me about your plans, Mr. Cassidy?"

What an easy damn deal. Not that she expects him to hold up his side any more than she plans to, but she's fairly sure he respects her enough to not lie about the bombs. There's no glory to be won in taking out a worthy opponent through something so cheap and easy as an explosive, and why would he have come to her like this if he didn't have some level of respect?

"Ah, I'll tell you that they'll be going off tomorrow right as the mall opens, but I won't tell you where until a little before then. That way you've no reason to renege on our arrangement."

He sits back in the massage chair, looking quite satisfied with this turn of events. "Regardless, with any luck we'll have a few less of these hapless competitors milling around come tomorrow evening."

There's a prickling of annoyance that Molotov feels when he doesn't tell her everything she wants to know, followed by a surge of desire to kill him right now -- it would be so easy, the training in the back of her mind whispers, you could even make it fun -- but she forces herself to remain calm, her face to remain placid, understanding, even. It'll look better on-screen if she demolishes him completely, lets him play with his little bombs and the idea of a temporary alliance before she slices his throat.

Cameras, cameras, everything is being watched.

"Have you seen them?" she jokes, ignoring everything racing through her head. "You could probably lock them in a room with a wet napkin and they'd somehow drown themselves. Hardly a cherry-picked bunch."

While she sits there, he's sizing her up. He's certainly not weak for a man his age, and the last few months in prison have given him a chance to regain his build (out of boredom as much as anything else), but she likely has him beat in terms of agility at the very least. He wouldn't place money on being able to fend her off, much less hurt her should they come to blows.

Which is just as well. Hitting a pretty woman won't play well for the cameras.

"It's almost insulting, isn't it?" Tom sniffs. "The most we can hope is that some of them are there just to illustrate how much better the people with actual skills are."

Tom was sized up the moment he walked in, and Molotov certainly didn't perceive him to be a threat, not physically -- although, to be fair to him, it was the rare person that she did see that way. Date giants long enough and everyone starts to seem tiny and not intimidating. She can see his strength but she knows that hers is just a hidden treasure, lurking behind the fact that she looks skinny.

Skinny doesn't mean you can't kick a 250 pound man through a wall.

There's a shrug as she takes another sip, then offers him the bottle. "When you have this many people around, I imagine that taking only gifted killers would get dangerous. We are only murdering each other in the arena -- the rest of the time, they have to make sure we are not murdering them, right? That's why we get the idiots and the small children and a giant turtle."

~~But what can you do to a 900 lb. Juggernaut boyfriend, eh?~~

He takes the bottle with a thank you that's nearly coquettish as he brushes his hand over hers before it closes on the bottle. If she's going to dress like that, he might as well make it obvious that he's appreciating the view.

"Am I going to be horribly disappointed in our voyeuristic overlords? I thought if they were managing this sort of spectacle, they were at least halfway competent."

~~Molotov can think of so many things, and none of them necessitate kicking him away.~~

She barely contains her snort, trades it instead for the more useful smile and eyelash flutter, then leans back with a spine arch just subtle enough to accomplish goals. Men, they're more predictable than a children's book you've read twice.

"They have their fun quirks. The brands, that's one. Pretty artistic, really, considering the surface space. Not the most sophisticated government I have ever come across, but they do have flair." They'd have to, to stick a hundred people in a themed death arena. "And they like to party, so that's fun."

"What some people call sophistication others might call excessive complication, I suppose." He takes a drink and passes it back to her - not a piggish gulp, but a polite mouthful.

"I imagine if either of us make it back there, we'll find quite a lot to enjoy about it. It's been a while since I've lived a hedonistic lifestyle. I've spent too long in prison lately."

"Bah, but they have no subtlety," she complains -- the late night raid has been sticking in her former-KGB craw ever since it happened. "It's all mass-level intimidation, there's no art. Where I come from, we have monsters under the bed, not Godzilla stomping around all over the city. When we took people away, it was silent and swift and made grown men cry in their beds at night for fear of what they didn't know. Here? They make a broadcast all about it and talk about it on their gossip shows."

She takes the bottle back, making sure their hands brush again but not acknowledging it. "If? Did no one tell you what happens here when you die in the arena?" Molotov smirks at him. "It is far better than being shanked in your cell, I can tell you that."

"Were you involved in those disappearings, then?" He has no doubt that she could prove a formidable monster ~~in the~~ under the bed.

He raises his eyebrows and leans in, thumb stroking the side of his jaw in thought. "I'm afraid I haven't been told very much at all. They took me about twenty minutes before they covered me in those glittery trousers and put me on ice skates. Hardly my most dignified moment."

"Maybe I was, maybe I just know people who were." Her answer is cheeky, delivered with a smile that says she most definitely was involved in some of those disappearings. Not all of them, of course; she's only one woman.

There's a snort, because yeah, Molotov can see that maybe that would not be a scene worth remembering in one's life. "You die in the arena, and you just get brought back to life in the Capitol. Exactly like you were when you came here, not a scratch from your new death. They just keep bringing us back over and over, to fight in the arenas endlessly. It's only over when you win or... well, the best I have been able to discern is that sometimes, people just don't come back after they die. No one is sure why."

She leans in as well, wrinkling her nose. "But don't die outside of the arena. Sounds like the last one who did wound up in a garbage bag. A small one."

"Duly noted." Tom folds his hands over each other and rests his elbows on his knees, his chin on his knuckles. It's a far cry from what he was told before he was placed in this match. He may need to start playing a longer game, should that be the case, one based not on momentary survival but on a strategy for building trust with his cohorts.

He really is in the Mojoverse, isn't he?

"And I trust they keep us fed and watered in between our quarrels for their entertainment?"

"Oh da, yes of course." Molotov nods and one of her feet wiggles absently. "Actually, the Capitol is a beautiful city. Everyone there is fabulously wealthy, there's wonderful restaurants and nightlife and everything is just seemingly perfect. That is what happens when you let a relatively small group of people live on the backs of every other citizen. They told you your District and score, right?"

Not that she herself has ever been to a District, or is even particularly well-informed about how it all works, but she's been told enough to know that Panem was Lenin's ultimate nightmare.

"District Ten, something about cattle. And I'm afraid if I'm going to tell you my score I'd like to know yours, first." So he can determine which of them is the cat and which is the mouse in this têt-a-têt, if you will.

Tom's black heart is just weeping for those poor saps in the Districts. Except not really.

"I suppose how I feel about Panem will depend on where Tributes fall between aristocrat and peasant. From what you're saying we're somewhat less than enfranchised." But also not dirt-poor.

"Ah. I'm in Six, transportation. Anyway, we have Districts because I guess technically we are trying to win for them. So if you -- or anyone assigned to Ten -- wins, then the people out there will have plenty of food and the Capitol's favor, whatever that means, at least until the next arena where someone from a different District wins. I have never been in the Districts, but I've met someone who has, and she says they adore us. Before we were the Tributes, it was their children, and the children stayed dead."

She shrugs. It's hard to care deeply about a bunch of people she's never met and knows nothing about, but she supposes it's nice enough that their children aren't dying. She'd prefer to be at home, though.

"We don't really fall on their scale at all, which is a bit horrifying in the leeway it gives them to abuse us. They've sent someone to work on rewriting the laws to address our presence here; I am already working on him. He picks good wine."

Molotov smirks, wiggles her foot again, and takes a swig of gin. "I'm a twelve, nosy Tom."

"Speaking as someone with experience, bringing the children in changes everything. Hell hath no fury, or quavering pusillanimity, like a parent threatened." Not that that means Tom cares about other people's kids. In fact, there's something almost mercenary about how he views his own experience raising as a child as a means of understanding how to manipulate others. "What's this fine fellow's name?"

Twelve. That's a far sight higher than his own score, and while it unnerves him he also gains the satisfaction of having assessed the threat correctly. He may be the weaker of the two, but he's not naive. "Well, I'm glad to see that they haven't partied themselves into blindness or stupidity."

"And how many little leprechauns do you have running around?" Molotov pictures tiny Irish stereotypes, freckled redheads and brunettes running around in shamrock fields. Eating raw potatoes and getting smacked by nuns. She may not have spent much time in Ireland, that's a possibility.

"Cyrus Reagan, but I have made him my personal business. His younger brother is my District's Escort, and I want them both as malleable as I can get them. Stephen found his backbone recently, but Cyrus... well, Cyrus needs me more than I need him," she smiles, a dark, pleased sparkle in her eye. Her plans for the Reagan brothers are obviously well-laid -- the arena is actually an unwelcome interruption in them.

She arches her brow and cocks her head. "I thought this was tit for tat."

And because Marvel Comics, he has to ask. "Literal leprechauns or children? Because one of the latter, and god only knows of the former."

He rests his chin on his knuckles as he listens, keeping careful track of the names and relations and positions that Molotov's relaying. He plans to stay out of her business, but just because he won't be engaging doesn't mean he won't want to be well-aware of her machinations.

He sits back again and chuckles. "And here I was hoping you'd let me off easy. I'm a mere eight."

Arguing with it would just seem insecure, as if he has something to prove. He doesn't, really, especially if they'll all be coming back.

Molotov opens her mouth, then closes it again without speaking -- she supposes she's heard of weirder things than leprechauns. Hell, she's killed weirder things than leprechauns. Manacondas are probably less annoying, though, even pregnant ones.

"I meant children. I guess I wasn't stereotyping you hard enough." There's something softer in her eye on him now, like maybe she thinks he's a little funny, or maybe it's just that she thinks he isn't enough of a threat to hate. Either way, she's lost all the conniving meanness she had when she was talking about the Capitolites, possibly just because she doesn't have any hate for Tom in the way she has hate for them.

Her cheek resting in her hand, propped on the arm of the chair, she takes another sip from her bottle. "We have time. Tell me about your kid."

"Do we really want to travel into that territory, the stereotyping territory?" The grin shows he's teasing, but he isn't entirely sure she won't take it personally. "I've met scarce few Russians here. Mostly it's just been Americans."

There's a certain fondness and condescension with the way he says 'Americans', as if they're something like housepets (or leprechauns). Regardless, it's just as honest as the fondness when he talks about Theresa, although there's a stir of pain in his chest at that whole mess. And as much as he could say on the matter, you don't get to be a career terrorist with actual family if you give out information about them willy-nilly.

"She's grown now. Doesn't call, doesn't write, after all I've done for her. It's enough to give me a crisis of faith in the human condition."

it's not possible to be more irish he owns leprechauns

you can't own them, tom, they're people too. small, magical people

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