thearena | My Unstable Ways is My Solution [OPEN]

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My Unstable Ways is My Solution [OPEN]

WHO| Venus Dee Milo and Pansy Parkinson, Venus Dee Milo and open
WHAT| Venus kills Pansy with a hair dryer and hangs out making her hair pretty.
WHERE| One of the salons.
WHEN| Week 2
WARNINGS| Death, mentions of torture.

Venus hasn't slept. What few snatches she's got have been interrupted with strange figures, with shadows that leave chills in their wake. It's been two weeks since she last had a dose of her medication and the booster shot is wearing off; given that she can't have Sponsors, Azula hasn't been able to provide her with anything to take the edge off, either. When she lies still on her bed of stolen clothing and a sleeping bag from the sporting goods store, she feels as if there's layer between her and her skin, and little electrical impulses and miniature rodents run along inside it.

She refuses to see Kankri on his terms. Instead, she visits him once a day. She doesn't want to snap at him when he invariably fusses over the brand on her face or the burns on her hands from the fryer oil. That means she's been spending most of the Arena alone and in silence, at least, if you don't count the endless Sleigh Ride loop.

Her feet are swollen from running barefoot on splinters of glass for the last two weeks. As she sits up in the salon today, she doesn't particularly feel the urge to go hunting for people, to grapple with the part of her that's evolved beyond a ruthless killer, that doesn't sit well with tracking people down and beating their brains out with household objects.

So instead she unbraids her hair and uses a flat iron, and turns up the radio next to the hair stylist's dock. Mercifully, the little radios are programmed to something besides Sleigh Ride. Were she not someone who could take care of herself in a fight, it might be stupid to make noise that announces her whereabouts.

Once upon a time she had a recording contract. Her voice is rougher now, older, but she sings along. She turns up the radio as loud as it'll get, blasting that some goddamn top forty song, and waits for her enemies to come to her.

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It's been a long time since Venus thought about the life she might have had if her family hadn't died. For a long time, as a teenager, she obsessed over this parallel universe where she went to community college and her mother helped her memorize human anatomy, where she played basketball with her brothers down the block, where she dated boys and chose dresses for prom and stressed out over textbooks and rent checks. She held onto that fantasy for longer than was healthy, until it grew into something that could fuel her sadness, and then she finally blocked it off and decided it belonged to someone else. The sadness lingered.

What she had was teen years of crying in bathrooms and shelters and a dorm at the Institute, trying to cover her disintegrating skin with gloves and hoodies, waking up in the hospital overhearing people discussing whether mutants should be given DNRs as a matter of principle.

She takes the comb and brushes back Albert's hair. She smiles as she dabs a little cologne behind his ear. And one hand drifts down and grasps his shoulder, massaging with her thumb all those muscles that have turned into tense, knotted cords through the Arena.

"Did you pick up any tips from her? Because I...I should have paid more attention to mine." She knows she's already failed miserably at helping to rebandage his leg, but she doesn't know what else she can offer.

"It's mostly outdated now; she died in the nineteen forties. That and she generally had medical supplies handy." His eyes drop closed again at the comb and hands in his hair and as she kneads into his muscles he practically melts even as her working at those knots puts a grimace of pain on his face. It's a good pain, though. The kind that you know is temporary and heralds improvement after.

"She used to make disinfectant at home with salt and vinegar, but I think that rubbing alcohol you had earlier would do the trick. It's been awhile since I cleaned the wound." He opens his eyes again and looks her in the face. "I can do it myself, if you don't want to look at it. It's pretty deep."

He doesn't comment further on her mother, feeling that may just open old wounds of hers that he doesn't have the skill to treat.

"Do you seriously think I'm afraid of looking at a little blood?" She raises an eyebrow, the expression stretching the brand on her face, making the scar tissue catch the light and shine a little. "Have you met me?"

She brings her other hand into the foray against Albert's tension, against the stress that has so ossified his muscles.

"I don't like blood, though. I'm just not afraid of it." She never fell in love with killing like some of her cohorts. Never.

"Not afraid, no, but it's not pleasant all the- all the same." His breath hitches mid-sentence as she works at his shoulders. He'd intended to sit up and see to his wound but he's practically paralyzed by her attention. It's been so long since he'd gotten a massage of any sort - was it back on Mocawa, when Leonard had been trying to see to his then-wounded leg? - that he's loathe to pull away or ask her to stop.

No, instead he indulges further, head lolling back and some of the tension leaving his limbs in favor of being touched.

"I guess I don't really notice when I'm doing unpleasant things if it's for a friend." And that's what he is, isn't he? A friend? "I just wish that was stitching people up more often instead of like, killing on their behalf."

But she's good at what she's good at. She keeps massaging until his muscles feel less like stone, softer now that the anxiety knitting them tight is broken up a little bit. She works the base of his neck, his shoulders, down his arms a little.

"There."

Her implying that they're friends is not lost on him and he smiles gently at the words, though it comes off somewhat more blissful because of the treatment she's giving his shoulders. He carries all his weight there, every scrap of stress and worry, yet Venus seems to have banished a good deal of it for the moment. And during an arena too; she's a miracle worker.

"Maybe you should add masseuse to your resume." He lays there in the chair for a long moment, reveling in how light he feels for as long as he can before reality sneaks back into his thoughts in the form of his leg aching insistently. He gives a grumbling sigh and with great effort sits back up to examine his leg.

He hasn't had the time to get a new pair of pants so the shredded leg of his initial pair is simply bandaged over. He unwinds it carefully, wincing as it comes away from the gummy mess of the wound a couple inches above his knee. He's lucky it hadn't been further up and possibly hit an artery, but instead it went through a mostly fleshy part of his leg and while it makes walking uncomfortable, it's not impossible.

That said, even though he'd cleaned it before bandaging initially, it doesn't look very good now. Some of the skin is dead and charred in places from the explosion and the interior is an angry bloody red with a film of viscous umber over it that comes away a bit stringy stuck to the underside of the bandage and makes Albert look perhaps even a bit paler than usual, though that could be a trick of the light.

"I'll need to wash it. Is there a hose on any of the sinks?" Best to just get down to business rather than worry about if its already infected. There's nothing to be done if it is.

She doesn't know entirely how to help, but she does what she can. At the moment, it's just taking the ruined bandages and shoving them into a trashcan, handing Albert the detachable nozzle on one of the sinks. She doesn't wrinkle her nose, doesn't pale at the gruesome injury. She's seen worse, lived worse. A few weeks ago she was carrying worse on her cheeks.

It's a miracle that, without real medical supplies or attention, she didn't succumb to her wounds early in the Arena. The bruise on her back that doesn't seem to fade, that seems to only darken and deepen each day, probably indicates internal bleeding, but like his potential infection, there's nothing to be done.

"I can wash it out for you if you don't want to look. I don't mind." She lowers her eyes. "I wasn't there in the food court when the bombs went off. I heard there were a bunch of kids there, though."

"It's less a matter of looking and more that it would be easier for you to reach." The massage did wonders but the explosion did more than just put shrapnel through his leg. He's still stiff in many places, bruised and battered and it makes bending over to tend to his leg somewhat painful even after short periods of time.

At the mention of children he lets out a slow breath, heavy with his brand of cold anger. "Yes. There were."

There were and once he finds out who did that, there'll be another person on his slowly growing list of who he doesn't have compunction about killing in the arena. Or potentially out of the arena, considering Kevin and his spectacularly brutal win at the loss of both Jet and Felicity in a most harrowing fashion. Forget anyone who harms Albert, it's not worth the revenge. Even just plain causing death, that's to be expected in an arena. But eating people alive. Blinding someone with hot oil and leaving them to suffer. Murdering children. These things are unforgivable.

Venus looks dead behind the eyes for a moment, the mirror capturing the reflection of a statue or a mannequin instead of a human girl. "When I find out who did it, maybe I'll actually put this old body to good use."

If she's going to be good for nothing but violence and massages in this Arena, she may as well do right by the inborn law, the one all humans come to in time if they live long enough. The one she's come to after a year of soulsearching.

Violence, massages and cleaning the gunk from the wound. She does so with the calmness of someone long desensitized.

"I'll help." He grimaces as he throws his proverbial hat in with hers against their mysterious child killer, but from the amount of pain that flares as she washes the gunk from his wound, he may not be helping anyone very soon. At least not in the arena.

He's already accepted he's not going to win this, never sought it out in the first place really. There are too many children more deserving of getting out, too many who could do good as victors. If it means those better than him have a chance at winning, he'd rather help them. Not that it ever turns out that way. It's usually the people who want it badly enough, who plan or betray. Look at Kevin. And look at Clementine, already a victor but back in the arena anyway.

There's really no point in winning after all.

"I think that's enough," he tells her through grit teeth, the water flowing over his wound already lapping at the edges of his pain tolerance. "It needs a clean bandage."

"Okay. I can do that for you." She grabs one of the fresh ones and passes it to him, setting the hose down. She feels bad enough to have caused that little pain, even knowing it was necessary.

"Maybe that's what our purposes will be in the Arena. Not protecting people who deserve it, but being a warning against people who don't. That's - I'm good at killing. You know I am."

Some days she feels as if she's a punch and a kick and a headbutt and a throttle all tied together with a noose, not even body parts so much as acts of violence.

"We could put the fear of God in them."

"Fear of God is immaterial. Fear of man is far more real." He sounds cold, positively empty as he says it. Like stone. Like a marble slab, devoid of all emotion. It's easy to see, when he's staring hard and glacial at the gaping wound in his leg, that he would kill any who got in his way, that if he snapped or was given adequate reason, he could murder his way through the arena. That the only reason he hasn't already is because of his scruples.

In a moment it's gone, leaving him just looking tired and drained. "Once this is wrapped, I should get back to Jet. You'll be alright on your own?"

"Fear of woman." If Venus were the type to scare easy, the certainty in Albert's voice would send a chill rushing up her spine, starting deep in the pit of her stomach. But instead, her voice is equally cold. Certain.

And it lingers, just a little bit, when she talks to Albert after that. "I'll be fine. You know where to find me if you get worried, okay?"

It's not a joke but he smiles anyway. Because he can, because they's so similar, something makes him smile and hold his hand to her as he gets up, not for support but for the contact. "I believe it, but you might have to humor an old man."

He presses a light kiss of gratitude to her face, not on the brand for fear of hurting her but close to it; it doesn't bother him at all. If anything, it's a sign she's got something beautiful inside, a fire that drives her towards the right, if more dangerous, path.

"Give 'em Hell, Delilah."

"Don't worry. By now, being an avenging angel is my calling." Or the only thing she's suited for, so honed into a point as she is, so weaponized by the circumstances of her life.

She gives his hands a squeeze. "I'll see you around, Albert. Come by whenever you need someone to loosen you up."

"Careful saying things like that, people might talk," he gives a little smirk since they both know that's never a possibility, but it's amusing in its own way. And the Capitol is a strange place, maybe they will talk. Maybe it'll get them both sponsors somehow, or maybe they'll just be poo-pooed on that terrible gossip show. Who knows.

In any case, he's already been gone too long. He squeezes her hands back for just a moment, then lets go to take his leave, limping a little less and with his head held a little higher.

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My Unstable Ways is My Solution [OPEN]

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