HA (dgaf) wrote in colosseum, @ 2014-02-09 20:28:00 |
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Not a good idea to have a conversation about Capitol/Victor romances on the network. Even worse an idea to do it somewhere obviously bugged, like Pickles’s piss-drenched apartment or 12’s assigned floor. Best to go somewhere loud. Lots of people, lots of alcohol, with a setting absolutely in the ordinary. He’d learned his mistakes on that front. It was just good manners to make Pickles knock back a myriad of jewel coloured shots before they got to talking properly. Just good manners to do the same himself. It was a shots shots shots kind of evening, here in the back room of the year-before-last’s Shiny Shiny Thing. No one Pickles would have to worry about would be here. Feet up on the table apparently made of black marshmallows, Haymitch tossed back a thimble (actual thimble, what the fuck) of something jet black in taste, chewed on air and stuck his tongue out. Tastebuds apparently still existed. “Sooo tell me.” He tilted his head back in the black marshmallow chair, eyes flicking along the endless legs of a girl with radish colored hair who was shimmying past him and Pickles, who his words were actually for. “About your Victor who is not me or the Bitch.” By the time Anita was a few shots in, she stopped asking herself why she went out in the first place. After the few after that, she stopped dreading the inevitable questions Haymitch would have about her 'boy problems'. Then, she tossed back her own strange thimble shot and, after scrunching up her nose and cringing comically where she sat, she found that she couldn't wait for him to ask her. As if sensing that she was ready to talk, he asked. She wouldn't have been surprised if he did sense it - he certainly was much more intuitive than most people gave him credit for. She followed his eyes to the girl with the long legs, observing her with drunken, passive eyes for just a moment before she turned her attention back to Haymitch. Turning sideways in her chair, she propped her elbow on its back and dropped her chin into the palm of her hand with a heavy sigh. A curl fell onto her face and she tried unsuccessfully to dramatically blow it away a few times before tucking it behind her ear with annoyance. Anita didn't usually like being drunk like this in public. Right now, she was thinking she'd be much more comfortable flopped lazily on her couch even with Rodriguejo terrorizing her living space. "He's not mine," she said with a frown, "Or I wouldn't be moping in a bar." So it was another Victor. Though his head remained stationary, within the confines of his own mind, Haymitch imagined into being a small nod. He’d been mostly sure of that. Pickles was much too Pickles to put her hopes on someone Capitol. “And why’s he not yours?” He kept his eyes straight ahead rather than look at her. It was a simple enough question, with a thousand of answers that varied in difficulty. He had his guesses, but this wasn’t like with Baby Red. He didn’t need to use leading questions when Pickles was drunk and friendly enough to want to open up. He picked a sunset orange shot off the table and knocked it back. It tasted like fucking lime. Why not? Her eyes rolled at that like they might pop out of her skull. It was a question she asked herself more times on a daily basis than she cared to admit. She watched Haymitch select and toss back another shot and, inspired, leaned forward to choose another for herself. Layers of pink and white, something curiously glittery. Anita dragged it closer to the edge of the table and pinched it for a moment like she intended to lift it but then she changed her mind, leaving the shot where it was and leaning back in her chair again. She looked at Haymitch again and he still wasn't looking at her. Oh, right! It was still her turn to talk. Why not? She let it spill out. "All the obvious reasons and then some - I thought he was freaked out and then today, you know..." She wasn’t the most articulate drunk. Her voice trailed off but she reminded herself that, no, Haymitch wouldn't know unless she actually said it. He wasn't actually in her head even if it seemed that way sometimes. "I saw him out with someone else and it was just weird," she said begrudgingly because she really didn't want to say it. But she was talking to him on the network right before she left to meet Haymitch, she reminded herself, and what he said made sense. Even if her suspicions were correct, he wouldn't have any reason to lie to her about it. Anita was zoned out a bit, a little too far gone to be so deep in thought and look mentally present all at the same time. ‘Saw him out with someone else..’ If he wasn’t a master poker player of epic proportions, Haymitch would’ve shifted in his seat. Instead, he inspected the inside of his sunset glass and then sucked on the edge, eyes wandering along the curve of the marshmallow table. If it was Maalik, then she couldn’t know about the Dory factor. No way were the two of them allowed to get their cuddle on in public, and without that, there was no reason for Pickles to think anything was weird. Really, Haymitch couldn’t think of anyone Maalik could have been out with that would have pinged Pickles’s radar. He was friendly and a good little Victor. Fawn, maybe -- the two of them had an odd tenderness to their friendship Pickles could stumble on to -- but Haymitch knew well enough that Fawn wasn’t out in the Capitol unless she had to be. Besides, he was sure Pickles would have had some flailing to do about how he’d feel about Fawn being with someone else. So. Why else would it be weird? A Victor (Maalik?) and someone else, out together. Someone Pickles was interested in, more than that, someone who was freaked out. Light seemed to shift and twine in Haymitch’s head, revealing the obvious truth that this was someone who knew about her feelings and probably returned them. Not Maalik. No chance he’d be able to keep two women juggling without cracking. Haymitch smacked the shot glass back on to the table and picked out his glass of water, tilting his head unnecessarily far back and letting the coolness trickle down his throat. Who’d he seen Pickles with these past few days? The answer was obvious: no one. Where was the evidence she’d been sneaking around to see someone? Nowhere. He pressed his mouth against the curve of the glass and then pressed it into Pickles’ hands. She needed it more than he did. “Out with someone else, and no time for you.” "Yeah," she said wryly, accepting the glass of water from Haymitch without protest. She'd be glad she drank a bit of water in the morning. After forcing herself to drink quite a bit of it (because even in her drunken state it couldn't be said Anita wasn't the proactive sort) she handed it back to him like holding it was far too big of a chore than she could handle right now. She wasn't wrong - really, she was liable to spill it feeling like she was at the moment. "He says he'll," she waved her hands back and forth mockingly and deepened her voice, "See me around," she shifted back to her normal voice for two words, "and he," then went back to waving her hands and doing a poor job mimicking Ash Blight, "Ain’t sure he’s gonna have time to come over." Anita made a sour face and picked her shotglass up from the edge of the table, tossing it down with relative ease because it would take nothing short of gasoline to make her wonder what was going into her system at this time. She continued conversationally, raising her eyebrows, "That's why I thought he was freaked out, 'cause of what happened the last time he came over." She paused and then amended, "Well, almost happened. He’s apprehensive, makes sense." As soon as the word ain’t was out of Pickles’ mouth, it was game over. Haymitch swallowed more water and then something green that tasted like ice in quick succession, letting out a belch as he slammed the both onto the table and then threw his hands behind his own head. “Bull by the horns time, Pickles. No way Blight’s seeing someone else, next to no way he’s making the next move with you.” His eyes slid away from a flash of radish hair to Pickles. Liquored up as he was, his eyes still held enough focus to light a fire. “You don’t give me ~space~ when I’m bullshitting you, why the fuck are you giving it to him?” It wasn't until Haymitch said his name that Anita began to hurtle towards sobriety rather suddenly. Oh shit. Shit. Suddenly, the secret she'd been harboring was a little less secret and despite her drunken ramblings earlier, she hoped she'd be vague enough that she'd have the option to reel it in and keep the actual identity of the person in question to herself if she so chose at the end of it all. She should have known he'd pick at her words until he figured it all out just like he did with everything else. She inhaled deeply, trying to force herself to relax. It wasn't Haymitch's assessment that riled her up, it was that lingering feeling of having a rug pulled out from under her feet when he revealed he put it all together. His celebratory ‘Eureka!’ moment hadn’t gone unnoticed by her. He wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t know, though - it only took one almost-kiss followed by a prompt exit for her to learn that the next move would have to be on her. She just never expected him to make it so difficult. Twisting her mouth into a frown, she finally spoke, "Because I don’t want to make it worse. He’ll shut down if I push too hard, you push back and then we figure it out. You’re not a whole lot alike, I’m sure you’re shocked. I get why he’s holding back but I still plan on trying to change his mind. You know, assuming I can actually get him to talk to me somewhere without an audience. It’s only been a few days, I keep thinking he’ll have to want to see me sometime soon even if he thinks he shouldn’t.” She paused, pointing to the shots, “Pick me one - and that thing with Thalia..." Anita waved her hand dismissively, "Whatever, alright? I saw him with someone else and assumed he showed up with her and I was wrong," she eyed the inside of her wrist where Rodriguejo swatted at her earlier and admitted with a sigh, "Just stupid, I know better, I’m just feeling so…” She shook head. Surely, Haymitch could fill in that blank just like he filled in all the rest. Haymitch slid a shot with violent purple bubbles over to Pickles with his bare foot. His shoes were...somewhere. He tilted his head and threaded his fingers through the scruff his hair, mulling over the words she’d just spewed out. “Why do all of your problems boil down to ‘and now I just have to force this difficult person into conversation’?” Her mother flashed through his mind, and within the confines of his mind only, Haymitch gave himself another nod. He couldn’t even think about the idea of Ash and Thalia without wanting to snort. Pickles really had to be on edge if she’d entertained the thought of Blight and a proper Capitol for more than a millisecond. And what was the end of that utterance anyway? Vulnerable. Let down. Any one of those sort of words that didn’t really matter. “Down your fucking shot and talk to him.” Pickles was an honest, huggy feely sort of drunk. He didn’t see forsee any problems there. “He’s already closed for business, time to knock on the fucking door.” Pretty sure that made sense. Haymitch grunted and pushed himself into something that was more like sitting, less like lolling. One trick of his hand and he had her PDA out of her purse and skittering on the table alongside the laminated card for a taxi company. “Need to get sober and laid -- Go home, Pickles.” Her nose wrinkled when Haymitch used his bare foot to pass her a shot. When did he lose his shoes? She hadn’t even noticed. Anita gave him a look of clear disapproval and was about to let him know she thought shoes were a must in public places regardless of inebriation but then he asked a bit of a thought provoking question. The disapproval in her expression was replaced by something more curious but all she could do was shrug. She couldn’t argue with him - that really was how the majority of her issues with others boiled down. He didn’t want an answer, though, and his advice struck a chord. Sit in a bar and drink shots she couldn’t handle and keep on spilling her secrets or go home and talk to Ash - it wasn’t much of a toss-up for her (even if he was quite possibly rather annoyed with her at the moment), not that she didn’t appreciate Haymitch’s company. Her mind had already refocused itself on what she might say, how she might go about fixing the way she’d been on his case earlier, and she didn’t think again of Haymitch’s foot on the shot glass before she knocked it back. Green eyes narrowed slightly when he sent her PDA and taxi company card across the table at her. Even drunk, she instantly thought of every time she panicked trying to find her PDA in her purse on 12’s floor of the training center only to search elsewhere and find that it had magically been in her purse after all. Was she being paranoid? Probably not. Whatever. Standing a little more uneasily than she was proud of, she slung her purse over one shoulder and gathered the PDA and card in her other hand. Anita was about to follow Haymitch’s instruction when she hesitated and stuck her pinky out at him, “Don’t talk to Ash. Or write or type or communicate. Or make faces. Nothing. Promise, and don’t you dare cross your fingers or do any other...agreement-nullifying thing,” there was a small pause, her pinky still hanging in the distance between them as she tried to think of more ways she needed to plug the agreement to make it safer, “No loopholes.” Well, she DID try. She pushed her pinky closer to him insistently. This is what Haymitch’s life involved now. Pinky Swears. He rolled his eyes with the exaggerated aplomb that was one of his less offensive trademarks, and hooked his little finger around hers in a sharp tug. “It’s cute you think I take that much of an interest in your messes, sweetheart.” No need to cross your fingers or hold your breath when breaking promises gave you no pause. He’d talk to Blight if -- and only if -- he deemed it the necessary thing to do. He dragged himself up off his the weirdly designed chair Sparkleina was probably somehow personally responsible for, and started gathering together the shot glasses that were still full. What he really needed was a very big bottle he could just pour all of them into for later. Also some vomit magic and breath spray so he could be sober and good smelling enough to pursue sex. Arms full of dainty shots, shoes abandoned, Haymitch went stumbling for a Capitol table to commandeer and an It to lift the wallet off. |