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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"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."

"Russians are stereotyped for a good reason," is her answer, all laughter. "I'm sure I fit every one you could think of -- oh, but gymnastics, not ballet or ice skating. Everything else, probably true." She sighs. Americans are like pets, really. God knows she'd had a dog to tame in her star spangled ex-boyfriend. "Americans try. And they are gullible. Trusting. Easy to kill."

Molotov waves her hand dismissively. "Some children are born bad, nothing you can do. If my papa had lived, I would never have even left Russia." She refrains from criticizing his parenting, although her thought is that beating adoration into children usually works, in her experience with being a child. "Probably your wife was soft on her. Spoiled her."

Gymnastics. His face says ooh, my.

"My partner in crime is everything but the latter. One hundred percent bulletproof, doesn't need to eat, breathe or drink, can lift a building with one hand." Tom laughs. "Believe me, if he weren't invulnerable his stupidity would have gotten him killed long ago."

There's a note of nostalgia in his voice, subtle as the undertones of a fine cologne. It's there when he laughs, too.

"Hardly. I don't have a wife. I never married, found it entirely too restrictive."

Molotov's eyebrow and the corner of her mouth, both raised up only slightly, answers Olympic level.

She actually seems fascinated by this partner he's mentioning, although the stupidity dims her interest a bit. "Is he not human?" she asks, leaning forward a bit. "To not even need to breathe? It's amazing he hasn't taken over the world, even without a brain."

There's a soft puff of breath, huffed out as if he's said something stupidly obvious. "Isn't that the point? Finding comfort in being confined? So boring, it was no loss when my last boyfriend... disappeared. I could hardly stand to look at him anymore by the end, it was so dull. Never let yourself get talked onto a mega-yacht when you are on the run from the government, you just wind up with no options for people to talk to."

"Human. Painfully human. By which I mean he isn't a mutant." Though, to tell the truth, Tom's never placed much stock on the delineations between humans and mutants. He loves his mutant power, takes great pride in it, but he rankles at the political identity attached to it. Superhuman is superhuman, and who cares how you came to have great power? "Augmented by magic. It's an incredible world we live in."

He laughs again. "Oh, god. My lesson was learned on that one long ago. There's a reason my own yacht is packed with enough literature and pet projects to keep me busy for years should we become shipwrecked."

The idea of having no one to talk to but Cain is enough to make his skin crawl.

She sighs heavily. "I thought it would be fine, he was smart and interesting and completely infatuated with me, but ughhh, just... just so dull. After the first month or so, the only time I enjoyed myself was when we got captured. I guess that is what I get for choosing someone normal. Well, except for the giant thing." By now, her head is thrown back against the headrest, as if she's still beating herself up for even bothering.

"I don't know what you mean by mutant." Magic is common enough in her world -- maybe not excessively so, but enough that she's dealt with it. Firsthand, actually, thanks to that Indian burial ground. "You mean he had an accident that changed him?"

"What a coincidence. We've both made ourselves the regular companions of giants." He gestures with his hand that she should totally let him have a bit more gin.

"In my world, some of us are lucky enough to be born with enhanced abilities due to genetic mutations." Tom sounds smug for a hot moment, then irate. "Which, it seems, was deemed an unfair advantage over the others in the Game, and so they've disabled them."

Temporarily, if they know what's good for them. Tom's entire identity isn't wrapped up in his ability to conjure ~~frickin' laser beams~~ fire, but he's still unhappy with something so innate being stolen from him.

"And yes, others, like Cain, come by them by accident."

Molotov knows that that sometimes powers can be returned. It was one of the first things she was warned of, that some people had them and sometimes they could use them.

She doesn't say a word.

"And what were you lucky enough to be born able to do?" Molotov punctuates by taking a long drink of gin, then slowly licking her lips before waving the bottle at him. "Ask nice."

"Please." He doesn't mind her making him beg. That's all part of the chemistry here, the mental chess game they're playing with each other.

"Conjure fire. 'Spontaneous tactile pyrokinesis and generation' is, I believe, the medical term for it."

Pyew pyew.

He's rewarded with the bottle, even though her eyebrow is arched like maybe she doesn't think he begged her altogether hard enough. Ask better, she almost says, then decides to let it go for now.

"That's fun. Certainly better than some of the powers I've heard of at home." Which, yes, are almost all ridiculous and pun-based, for whatever reason. "Must be hard, to not have something you've had since birth."

Next time he may get on his knees. He takes a sip, murmurs out a thank you and returns it to her.

"I'm sure. Some people really don't have the luck of the draw when it comes to these matters. I once had a cohort who looked like a damn elephant, and that was it. He didn't even have tantric strength." He's totally not going to mention that he needs to be touching plant matter to get it to work, because some things just lend themselves to puns too damn easily.

"I'll manage the tragedy of it."

Oh, she's fully prepared for that, but later.

"Did he have some use, or were you hanging out with him just because you liked his personality?" she asks as she takes her bottle back, tone only vaguely mocking him. "There is a reason I didn't hire ugly girls to work for me, and the one ugly one in the company was a genius. Never kept her around for her stubble."

Even if she hates to admit that Hunter wasn't a complete waste of space for the Blackhearts.

"My heart aches for you."

"'Cannon fodder' is a use, isn't it?" Tom's laugh as he says that is outright mean, and some people might find such an expression of misanthropy distasteful (to which Tom would say that Mammomax hardly counted as a man, and that the proper term should be mispachidermy or something equally unwieldy).

"Regardless, I'm sure you didn't need to keep her around to look better by comparison."

Molotov doesn't seem to find his attitude off-putting, and shares it to some extent -- although she sort of regards needing such henchmen as a weakness in and of itself.

"Well, I never thought Zara was much of a looker, but no, Hunter was... a complicated case. Defected from the government, had sex change, threw on a catsuit and decided she.. he... whatever, wanted to partner up. Start an agency. He's a man again now, by the way. And in charge of the government office he left originally."

She sighs, knowing it sounds stupid and also knowing that she's barely acknowledged the compliment. She doesn't need to, has never responded to outright praise of her appearance.

"Still better than organized villainy."

"All in a year's work for someone in our trade." It's astonishing how completely straight-faced he says that.

"What do you think about supervillains? I always figured wanting to rule the world was something of a fool's errand." God, who has the time for all that nonsense? You'd hardly get a chance to enjoy your power without having to worry about someone trying to take it from you.

Tom's ambitions might be set lower, but he likes to describe them as 'more refined'.

She snorts. "Since coming here, I have learned that supervillains where I come from are maybe a little different from the ones in other people's homes. Do supervillains in your home audition for their arch? Or report to an organization? Most of them at home don't want to rule the world, I don't think. My ex did, but more in a 'finance and power' way than in a 'crown and scepter'. Like I said, he was a lawyer."

There's a pause for a drink, and she shrugs. "I like that approach. Rule the whole world from behind the scenes. Let someone else take the blows and the blame, be the face of it. Like the Koch brothers."

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