thearena | We met upon a hill, the night was cool and still

Entry tags:

We met upon a hill, the night was cool and still

Who| Molotov and Black Tom
What| An alliance ends... sort of
Where| Only Bath Salts, obviously the most useful store in the mall
When| Week 4
Warnings/Notes| Lots of murder talk

After killing the kid in the alarm chaos, Molotov found the safest spot she could, and waited. When the mall opened and the noise faded away, she promptly fell asleep, ears still ringing, and woke up several hours later feeling amazing.

That hadn't faded away. She had needed the rest, and now her body is back to fighting condition. Which is important, because she has goals in mind, targets and missions and ideas. Molotov with ideas is a dangerous beast.

She goes to the department store for new clothes first -- hers are pretty much trash by now, covered in dried blood. When she leaves, hours later, she's (fairly) clean, thanks to the bathrooms, fully made up and dressed in white. The only indicators that she's recently been coated in blood multiple times are the red smears she's missed behind her ears and on the sides of her neck, and the places in her hair where blood has matted it down near her hairline, visible even when she's pulled it all up.

Now she tracks, following Tom until he's isolated and far from everyone, in a place where she can easily drop down from the kind of high-vantage perches she likes, so that she's right behind him, one thin arm reaching to snake around him.

"I've been counting cannons."

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Tom's been spending most of his time in the Arena alone, which he finds honestly a bit blissful. For the most part, he hasn't found the majority of the people here to be scintillating conversation, probably due to the fact that so many of them are youngsters. There's also the issue of keeping up appearances, and Tom's appreciating not having to spend energy on a facade.

Now, if only the Gamemakers would provide something besides froyo and fried rice.

He barely hears her coming; she's like an owl, moving through the air silently. He only just has registered her feet on the ground when her arm is around his waist, but the smell of blood and soap and her perfume keys him in immediately. His hand loosens on the knife in his belt.

"And?" He turns on that charm that makes him so suave as an older man; as a younger one, it made him positively unstoppable. "Is the competition making you nervous? Here I thought I was doing you a favor by culling the herd."

She chuckles and hooks her chin over his shoulder, stepping closer to him. "Don't be so cocky," she murmurs, rolling her eye. "You are hardly the only one tackling their numbers, and I got started before you did. Probably had more fun, too."

There's an air of utter enchantment with murder in her voice that a lot of people probably find very disconcerting, but Molotov just thinks of it as an art, and she's her own biggest fan. "You should have known I would come find you when twenty were gone. I even gave you some extras, just because I like you so much. Now tell me why I should keep liking you."

Tom, though he lacks that own self-enchantment, isn't at all perturbed by Molotov's. Tom has no special place in his heart for murder, but he's fine with it, enjoys it at times, occasionally. He's just been around enough people that get the high off it.

He slips his arm around her waist in turn.

"Oh, but I think I made a grander statement with the food court. Not that I don't give you credit for the execution - no pun intended - of your thief's reveal." Really, he has to give Molotov points for drama. "How do you think our little rivalry is playing for the viewers?"

"The little frog was only one of them," she corrects, reaching up to tap his nose. "There was the man in the theater who should know better than to think with his lap, and the boy last night, during the alarms. Left him in the fountain. The food court was nice, but your face wasn't on camera, now was it?"

It's all teasing though, and she smiles as she looks at him. "Well, I hope. I stopped checking my locker for gifts, since I cannot really carry anything else anyway, but as long as we keep producing corpses, I can't see them falling out of love with us. They just want to see gore."

There isn't a single harsh note in her voice or gaze when she adds, "And when it comes time for me to kill you, I will make sure they stay infatuated."

"I've been accomplishing plenty on-camera, too. A woman in the bookstore who barely even fought back, a young gladiator at the escalator, a boy with a gun in the arcade - pity I could salvage the gun. And even when I haven't done it myself, a pet robot of mine has been doing a fine job murdering at my beck and call."

A robot he may or may not have given Molotov's description to. ~~He totally did.~~ And he hasn't mentioned that he has Bucky's shotgun yet.

He smiles and twists a lock of her hair around his finger gently.

"I'm sure that won't be difficult for you." A less confident man might protest being infatuated with her. Tom doesn't, because ultimately business will always come first. He doesn't have enough of a heart to get it truly caught up in the matter.

"Are you sure your robot still alive?" she questions, looking smug and altogether distracting as she tilts her hips toward his. "I had a robot, but he's dead now. They're only helpful when they're alive. Or if you are."

It's almost instantaneous, the way she's able to swing her legs at his ankles, intending to put him down on his back in the aisle. She barely shifts otherwise, even leaving her arm around him. Really, Molotov just finds men easier to deal with when she's literally on top of them.

"His mannequin hasn't shown up in that awful clothing store yet." She distracts rather well; he suspects that this was one of her most favored tactics when she was doing whatever it was she was up to before Panem. "So I assume he hasn't run out of petrol ye-"

And then he's on his back, and my, she's either faster than he expects or he's getting too old for flirting with danger. After a less than dignified 'oof', he tightens his arm around her waist and loops his good leg over her back.

"Well, that's forward of you."

Molotov laughs at him, balancing with one hand on the floor and the other at the line where his neck meets his jaw. "I think that you need to be put in your place," she purrs, as pleased as a cat who's caught a big Irish mouse. "This seems about right. On your back... just the right angle for a quick break of your neck..." Her hand splays dangerously against his neck for a moment, then she pulls it back to run her fingers through the front of his hair.

"Da, yes, this is how it should be."

He'd be hard-pressed (pun intended?) to complain about a death like this, with her impossibly soft hand against his neck, his jaw, his earlobe. He suspects that her palms are so smooth because of how often she wears gloves.

"Perhaps, but you're not going to kill me like this. It would be too anticlimatic."

Keeping your nails nice in her line of work is really hard without gloves, okay? But she does have a very good lotion regimen, started decades ago when she was chalking her hands and feet every day for gymnastics.

"No," she agrees, voice low and silky. "Not right now, not with something so crass as a broken neck. But I never said I was going to kill you like this, did I? I just told you that this is where you belong." Her chuckle is deep in her throat when she leans down, breathing in his ear. "You need to remember for later. In the Capitol."

"I think I'll have quite the difficulty forgetting." He gets a little bold, resting a hand on her hip, rubbing his thumb over her stomach.

"So. I take it you've been enjoying yourself so far?"

She nips at his earlobe before sitting up straight, her hands resting on his chest, so that she can hover over him like some kind of slightly bloody succubus, all dangerous smiles.

"What is there not to enjoy, exactly? Except maybe the lack of proper showers and beds."

His smiles are less grand, more smirks, subtle upturns at the corner of his mouth, but similarly dangerous. Perhaps not as predatory as smug.

"I take it you haven't found the, what was it called, Bedding, Bathsoaps and Better? They have quite a few proper beds we could try out. Orthopedic, even."

"It's truly precious that you think I trust you enough to get even a little tired next to you. Absolutely adorable." She gives his sternum a condescending pat to go along with her tone. "But you'll have to wait until there isn't a crown at stake. Besides, you haven't worked nearly hard enough for orthopedic fun."

Honestly, Tom, did you think a woman named 'Cocktease' is just giving it away?

"You really think I'd kill you in your sleep? You have such little faith in me." He runs his hand down her thigh, resting it on her knee. "Don't you know I'm a man of my word?"

It speaks to his acting skill that he doesn't start laughing hysterically right there.

"I know better than to put faith in anyone but myself," she answers with a pinch to the back of his hand. "So you can hold out until I think you're ready." Her smile has honey dripping over cruelty, like she thinks it's sincerely entertaining to tease and taunt him.

It may very well be entertaining to them both. He's happily bewitched, but not senseless - never senseless

"And how do you plan on determining when I'm ready, Ms. Cocktease?"

There's a slight shift of her hips, one that could be accidental, if she were anyone else. But Molotov always knows what she's doing when it comes to men, comes to torturing them.

"Oh, that's not really any of your business." It's a cheeky murmur, complemented with a roll of one shoulder. "But it's worth striving for."

He reaches up and pushes a little hair over her shoulder, testing the boundaries, seeing how far he can get away with before she tells him no. "Alright, lass. If you say so."

He could ask her to get off him, but where would the fun in that be?

"Do you have any plans for this evening, aside from murder and mayhem?"

There's no protest, and Molotov even tilts her head a bit towards his hand before reaching out to try and catch it. "Don't doubt me, Mr. Cassidy. You have no idea what I am capable of."

She shrugs again. "After the murder and mayhem, I was hoping to find someplace quiet enough to eat a sandwich and catch some sleep. I get mean when I'm tired." As evidenced by the fact that she left a teenage boy floating dead in a fountain all because she was tired and he didn't say 'excuse me'.

"I may not, but that hardly stops my imagination from running wild." She may catch his hand, but he lowers his in her wrist and smoothly untangles it, until he's holding her hand in his, fingers entwined.

"A sandwich? That seems rather pedestrian. Then again, there's just about nothing in this Arena that's suitable for either of our palates, I imagine." Did Tom mention he's a snob? He's a snob.

She can't help but to squeeze at his hand when he holds it, even if it wasn't her initial plan. "Gymnast," she gently reminds him, nose wrinkled.

"They keep better in a kit bag than greasy pizza and limp french fries," she shrugs, because she has been hoarding things so as to keep from having to go to the food court very often. "Kobe steak would be nice, but food choices are a bit limited."

"And quite a talented one, I imagine." He squeezes back, then lets his hand drift down her forearm to her elbow. Every bit of her, he thinks, it flawless. It's really a marvel.

Probably wise, given that the food court has been a place full of explosions and people angry at him and Molotov for killing their loved ones (what crybabies). "I think I'd outright kill someone for some bisque, and you know that I'm entirely serious in following up on my threats."

~~Also, he misses potatoes.~~

"I don't like to brag, but I was an Olympian." When he lets go of her hand, she puts it back on his chest, only to slide it down to his stomach. Most people would consider a missing eye to be a fairly big flaw, but it's nice that he doesn't think so.

She smiles and rolls her hips slightly, thinking about all the food she's missed over the past month. "Mmm, lobster. I went to a seafood restaurant before the arena, the whole ceiling is an aquarium. It was delicious."

~~She misses them too.~~

"Is it bad taste to ask how many medals you won?" How many, not if she won them at all.

A missing eye just is a mark of character, like a mole over the lip or a heart-shaped birthmark, as far as Tom's concerned. Besides, it hasn't seemed to affect her depth-perception any.

"I hope you mean the dinner and not the aquarium."

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