WHO: Alexander Treadle (D8) WHAT: A shower can wash you clean, but it can't make you who you were before the Games. WHEN: Night 8 WHERE: Secret Apartment, Castle of Illusions WARNINGS: Well he's in the shower, but nothing other than that! STATUS: Complete
He didn't even care that there were probably cameras getting a very intimate view, that was how happy Alex was to have a shower running in front of him. If this was what was making the main feed right now, everyone would likely be wishing he was Cypress - his sisters most of all. Alex only wished his ally was still with them, to enjoy the feeling of the hot water washing away a week's worth of sweat and grime and blood. It took several minutes for the water reaching the drain to run clear, and Alexander's jaw clenched as he worked to shampoo the matted clump of blood out of his hair, the soap stinging the wound in a way that was probably for the best.
Everything about this was too good to be true, or rather, to not be a trap. It felt like any minute now, Brock and the girl from two would burst into the apartment, kill Amelia, and then murder him, naked in the shower. He'd left the dagger on the top shelf of the shower cozy, just in case. Would it be like this forever, if he won? Victors didn't have to fear for their lives, but how did you get out of the habit, once you started? It felt as though he would never be free of the pressure on his nerves. It was likely he wouldn't be. Strangely, the thought of his own death (clothed, hopefully) didn't upset him as much as thinking about Ariadne and Cypress, or Amelia, in the other room. It was easier to go than to carry on without the others, even though they all had wanted to live. Cypress had wanted to win, even. Alex held his face under the spray of the faucet, eyes closed, and it was impossible to tell if there were any tears.
The temptation to stay in the shower for hours was strong, but eventually his fingers began to prune, and he stepped out, drying himself and wrapping the towel around his waist. Alex wiped a hand across the mirror, and while he wasn't as startled as Amelia must have been, or Aramis if he ever had access to a mirror, the face staring back at him still seemed somehow unfamiliar. There was the light beginning of a natural goatee forming; spotty still but more than he let come to pass back at home. There were dark circles under his eyes too, but the eyes themselves were the strangest. Clear, dark brown had always felt the plainest, but suddenly there was a lot more to them, from everything that he'd seen the last two weeks. The boy who followed only in his father's footsteps back home had been replaced by someone who had been to the Capitol, who had struggled to learn too much too fast in training, who had looked a friend in the eye as he was dying.
Alexander backed away from the new version of himself, unsure if this was an improvement. He donned the plush robe they had found in the closet and opened the door. He wondered what Amelia had been like, back home. More or less the same as she was now, he hoped, as she was as kind and brave and resourceful an ally he could ask for, despite her size or age. "Put the robe back on," he suggested when she looked at him. "I'll wash our clothes in the sink."