If he hadn't been chief, he'd have winced at the change. Some part of him wants to shout in angered hypocrisy- why the rumble? Why the melodrama? Kili already knew, so why did Hawkeye feel like he was the one to drop the bomb this time? Of course he's practiced from telling boys who wake from surgery to find their legs gone that hoping wouldn't change the reality of the situation, and so his features don't shift. He gives a quick little grunt of acknowledgement, and drawls on with new found frivolity. "Don't worry about it; everything from the Capitol is twisted," he says in one breath, nearly sighing, nearly dismissive. Because he thinks now that he's talking to a dwarf- the fairy tale kind- and he thinks fleetingly that he is insane, because he remembered the dragon of District 1. "The gamemaker's heads are empty. They might have just forgotten."

Everything from the Capitol was twisted, and he cocks a brow right back at the short man, powerless to do anything about it but carry forward. Poor bugger, he thinks, and clicks his tongue like he was chiding a child for not seeing the whole of the picture. "But at least they have armor to show us." Which was back to a safe corner of conversation- here, and them, and them alone. Kili (and what the hell kind of name was Kili?) hadn't spilled a drop of Hawkeye's blood yet, and if they'd come this far, Hawkeye figured they were chummy as could be. Which was peachy. Really. "Unless you're wearing it all, Robin Hood." He starts to move away slowly and cautiously at first, listening to the nothing of the hall, before he moves to make a show of examining one display.

A mannequin of a man wears a leather tunic. Hawkeye pulls a face. "Let me confess something to you. Man-to-man," he says, not bothering to readjust his gaze to the dwarf. The dragon-slaying, elf-friending, shank-boot toting dwarf. He'd laugh about this, one day. He scratches his arm. "Being naked makes me feel a whole lot better." Which is to say that him pulling over a layer of clothing more wasn't a bad idea at all, in a very roundabout way.

He had harassed Eva about that, and hadn't yet regretted a second of it. The memory springs up about as ruthlessly as the pain had when she had sunk the trowel into his thigh that day at the garden, and he laughs. It's low and sounding more like hissing until Hawkeye realizes he can't stand any association with snakes, which then makes him snicker. He turns again to Kili, grinning, the upturn in his lips jovial and the mischief in his eyes eager. It had surprised him and must have been the nerves bubbling out, but like hell he'd let the high slip from him now.

He pokes himself in the stomach- his finger digs through the fabric and shows how much muscle he doesn't really have. Thirteen or forty hour shifts, rooted to the same spot, he could handle only for lack of other options. Lifting boxes and bodies when forced to move camp he could only do, well, when forced. He huffs out a breath, the grin growing smaller but genuine still. And that was his reply to that.

"I should cover myself in feathers, hide among the chickens," Hawkeye says. He strains his ears again and again hears nobody along but them, and he hops on to the slightly lifted diorama. "See, I don't plan on being near the spears or swords. And if you tell me that's not possible, I'll deck ya, ya know. Let a man dream. Red or white? Which would look better? Be honest, honey, I can take it."

Alright, alright, he had gone too far and failed, and after a huffing exhale, he's downright deflating. His shoulders stoop forward and he hunches in that ill-postured, too-comfortable manner of his, and he steps gently over placed gravel and stones to touch the leather on the model. He'd point out that he was already wearing red, but instead opts to roll his eyes. But gee, he really wouldn't mean to snap. The dwarf (and that was odd and would always be odd) was new, but what did he expect from him? Hawkeye was hardly a veteran. In this place, he means. He clicks his tongue.

"Tsk- I should be down there, ya know." Because if Kili wanted serious, he could have it. If he wanted more weight than he already shouldered, he could take all of his. And Hawkeye wondered just how quickly he'd go this time in a frantic moment, if Kili could carry that heavy-looking armor like it was no heavier than a half pound of flour, and if he himself could hardly lift the tunic off the posed mannequin without stumbling back. He wasn't any good with his hands, see. It's this funny thing about doctors, surgeons especially. He felt his skin crawling, and glanced at the doors where the elevator should rise. And damn Holiday. When he'd see her again, he wouldn't have any idea what to next to do. "But I'm claustrophobic." Oversharing like he was talking about the weather, about the great lights in Las Vegas. "I felt like the walls would close in on us, back there. They obviously won't because if they were meant to do that, they'd have done it." And he didn't even believe his half assed excuse. "I just can't breathe right when I feel trapped." And maybe Holiday had been right about only looking for failure in staying near the bloodbath, but he hated her anyway. He'd go back after a breather. After a break. Everybody was probably dead- the hell would they need him for? But he had to know.

He heaves the tunic over his robe. He grunts. A second later, he's wanting it off.

"How much have you been told about this place, Kili? Just how new are you?" he asks, voice muffled as he fights to keep the robe of his down as he slips the leather off. He fails, and shows his pale belly for a second. He also knows he's done a great job of mussing his hair, and find himself stupidly proud. "I've never seen you around the breakfast table." Easy as he'd be to lose in crowds, the short bastard.

Two days was enough time to get the ins and outs, and still he found himself worrying. What could he say, and what should he bring up? He hummed instead, acknowledging Venus' name. He'd only run into her once, but she was popular talk around the Capitol. He moved to another mannequin, another molded figure, this one armored much like Kili was. He wonders if he should say something about being brought back to life through a magic of medicine he didn't understand or ever would, or if by remaining silent he could have one person treat lives as valuable as they should be.

He snorts. "If everyone else can let themselves be controlled by their basest instincts," he declares, "then I sure as hell can, too." He had played a shooting game once as a boy, and had felt so terrible when he had shot the bear's shoulder. Then he realized he figured himself out- he was too angry to be exhausted. He'd never understand these people, and how they just cut into the flesh of the others. He might- some days in the plush Capitol bed he had convinced himself he entirely could- be able to understand why someone would watch the frenzy. Participating was another matter entirely, and without one there wouldn't be the other. With so much dislike in the air, he didn't understand why both parts still played. He gestured with one hand as he went on. "If you're ever hurt or know somebody who is-- I'd tell you to shout for me, any other time, but here I can't be certain that I'd be the one to get to you first."

It's light chain mail, and Hawkeye goes to touch it. Too much sparkle, he decided, and let it fall again. Some moments later, he gives up on his search and hops down again. "This game isn't something I can win. I didn't win the last one, ya know. Dying doesn't terrify me," -what a lie- "being useless does."

It was time to shut up.

Of all the times he wished he could sigh before, now he has to keep the heavy breath in. It was a neat trick he'd found one day he could do- bored and tired in ways a man never should be so near the ever-shifting lines of the front. He couldn't even twist his mouth into a grimace, inconsequential as it may prove to be if he tried. He'd brought this on, and the cornered feeling returned. And he hunched his shoulders some more, the 6-foot-2 of him somehow hoping to look smaller, in a bastard kind of shrug. It wasn't dismissive-- it wasn't about him, and just. Couldn't be anything but open.

"I still haven't," he offered- even and easy and he doubted it'd be suspected as the lie it was. He quits fidgeting with the fabrics and museum things, and he refused to recall the smile that wanted to tug at his lips at the vote of confidence from his new friend. A dwarf!

How wasn't any of this funny? Hawkeye brings a hand to the back of his neck, like he wanted to scratch and plumb forgot half-way what he had brought it up for in the first place. And his blue eyes aren't quite fixated on the man, thinking that'd make the fella uncomfortable more so than he already has. What a dolt. What a moron. What a jackass. Running his mouth like he was the only one running in the race-- Hawkeye wasn't sure he felt awful, but it wasn't such a great feeling to be responsible for the line of thought they'd derailed into. "There's really no rule that says you have to."

For God's sake, man. Why? Where was the Father for this question? Where was the chaplain that always had a quote of the Scriptures on the tip of his tongue and the right words to make the old and romantic thing make sense in the context of Napalm and bullets? This job wasn't his, Hawkeye reasoned, brows furrowing as he swallowed, feeling the weight of it catch up.

He directed his attention to the floor for a moment, and thought about sitting. He'd be nearer Kili's height, then, but would that be insulting? He caught sight of the large boots again, and remembered BJ's damn clown shoes and the hand that had been on his neck is let down to his side again. Hawkeye tallied that as his second mistake, the first being that he ever the gall to look down in plain uncertainty when the answer should stare him straight in the face the way Kili was. His job was to be a pillar, and so far he'd done a busted job.

Did dwarfs make good Christians?

And what did the agnostic care? He was sorry he ever fleetingly wished for Mulcahy to be in his shoes, and Hawkeye doesn't falter another moment. Death had come more often than not when the children had been put to sleep and after he had made an incision or two. Sometimes they'd be awake and rarely, but it happened, they'd be screaming and then the next instant, not. He doubted any one of them was ever prepared, doubted the families could ever really see it coming, despite knowing their boys were gone. Danger never really seemed like such a big deal until it arrived. Death was much the same. Hawkeye shrugged. "I was in a war before this," he said. He had already said he wasn't a soldier, didn't bother to say it again. "Things got ugly. I wasn't in the fighting but I didn't need to be to see things clearly. Death was something I saw a lot of. Out of every hundred-" boys, he wanted to say. Soldiers. Warriors. Brass. But it wasn't true. He saw babies charred and women torn, and after a breath he continued with his brand of certainty. "People I would work on," the MASH unit, he means, "two or three wouldn't make it. That would be two or three too many. It was a daily thing." He moved his hand again now, in this sort of circular motion like he was hurrying himself on. His voice grew a tad higher, and he really needed to get to the point here, huh? Sitting ducks, the both of them.

Nobody would ever be prepared to die. This wasn't a written novel with heroes and noble actions, with the knight in his armor who would give his life for-- no, no. Kili looked ridiculous in that outfit. There wouldn't be heroes here.

"And then there's this Game," he says. And he hoped death didn't catch the poor fella but it would, or else he had just damned all of his older friends and Hawkeye makes a shooing motion directed at the thought. "And I hope you have someone you trust by your side then. Friends are always nice." If selfish, but humanity carried on.

He wasn't sure if smiling was the right thing to do, or if he should have stayed grave, but he does. He smiles. He didn't dare grin because nothing had been solved or changed for the better, because his eyes brightened at what Hawkeye had figured before had been obvious. Confirmation wasn't necessary, and like he so often felt with many people he had interacted with here, there was a biting tinge of desperation at how difficult his notions seemed to be to grasp.

He had just- nearly- bared his soul to the guy, and here he was, asking like a sullen schoolkid. He had shown the guy his legs, his belly, his hesitance and current self-loathing. "Fella," he says, louder this time again but not recklessly so, "if I showed you any more of myself, I'd have to marry you." And again, he figured the meaning might be lost and only hoped it wasn't- for the sake of familiarity. Margaret or Beej or heck, even Charles would catch on in an instant, throw a shoe at his head. For the hell of it, for the moment he was having, he risks it- he'd swing an arm around Kili's shoulder, but height made that difficult, and the best he could do is let fall a heavy hand of his on the dwarf's shoulder. Could you imagine their children, he wants to ask. He shrugs, the giddiness bleeding through despite any attempts to hold it back. "And what would my mother think?"

He might be mad but he can't apologize. Not for the lousy doctoring or lousy words or even for the waste of time. Here was something solid, he thought, finally one definition of thousands slapped haphazardly onto one mad thing of thousands more. "I'd make a terrible housewife and the plumber would greet you home every Thursday evening." So yes, he means. Yes to being friends.

Would you look at them, though? Just look. What would any psychiatrist say about this? One moment they're both ready to pull their veins out from their arms and the next they're discussing marriage, all the while the world looked on and someone died below or above their heads, separated by the floors only. Hawkeye laughs.

He shrugs so his robe slides part way down a shoulder, leering and lecherous and channeling the worst showgirl flirt. He even bends his knees a tad, even leans back a fraction like there was a pleasant body there to melt into, so that if Colonel Flagg or Ferret Face had been there, they'd have threatened to burn him alive for degeneration.

"I'd get on my knees for an heir," he sighs.

And he runs a hand through his hair, and sighs again, and fixes himself up straight.

A dwarf prince. Huh. His mind's running with things to ask after their death, and Hawkeye realized that the thought of it shouldn't sit so nicely in his head as it did. Having spooked himself, he twitches- he catches himself and transforms the twitch into a suggestive wink. But really, his neck was hurting from looking down. But really-- they ought to move now before they further convinced themselves they were safe. "I think I should be going, darling," he offers, gently as he could, mischief still radiating off his expression. "People will only talk if they see us like this."

This was more like it, aware and not and-- hey, they wouldn't be the ones to kill each other, and that was enough. More than enough, Hawkeye figured, and a chuckle slips from him even after Kili's grown serious all over again and after he has brought back the bow, though it bordered on a yelp, just a sounded exhale. He rocks back once on his heels and adjusts the robe of his again, and feels a surge of guilt but soldiers through. "No, no," he chirps, glancing at the weapon. Well, the one brandished because Kili himself was a walking, living little tank.

"Not around me. I can't even stomach the thought." He says, and the only thing he'd like to stomach was lighter fluid calling itself gin. He thinks back to the man he'd saw in the cornucopia, the fire starting kit and disconcerting lack of aggression. He shakes his head but stops after the first movement, thinking the room was growing dim and that he should try to keep his brains from spilling out his ears. Again, Hawkeye's resolved, knowing just what he means with every word. His game isn't to last to the end. He can't ask a man- dwarf, as the case may be, and Jesus Christ, this dwarf was a prince- to not defend themselves. He knew. The colonel had chewed him out on it before, time and again, hadn't he? Regular Army didn't mean mindlessness, a loaded gun didn't mean-- oh, but Christ, it did. "I can't stomach anything right now, actually, but thanks for sending the taxi."

He should maybe focus on making sense to a person who lived outside of his own head.

A bow and its arrows and the assortment of knives meant that someone would be cut by them, shot by them. Forgive the civilian doctor for-- "We gotta go our own ways." He had teased and danced and flirted but he can't stay the night, bub. The boyfriend was waiting back in the motel. Hawkeye felt rotten, but the clock kept ticking. "I'm needed in the starting gates, and you're going to do just fine, big guy. You have a good head on your shoulders, and you don't look like you need me to tell you that staying out of trouble is a better idea than going looking for it." Fire drew fire and why was he the only man who understood this?

He'd apologize later, and heavily. But now all he could do was think about his negligence towards the girl he was speaking of at the same instance, hurried again by the invisible force of urgency and guilt. Hawkeye would run into Ellie soon, but not yet knowing that another day would come, his gestures are even grander than before. "Good! Good," he says again, and thinks yes, they're friends. They're damn good friends if he's going to signal out Ellie to Kili to search for. And if the dwarf doesn't think it's an important task then to hell with him, you know.

Hawkeye starts by raising his hand so the palm ends where he estimates the top of Ellie's head must be. It's off by a significant height. "She's gotta be around this tall- skinny in the scraggly kind of way but she's tough. She's not too young, either, but I mean, she's a kid. I don't know how many kids you know, but-- so she's about this tall, right? Reddish, brown hair. She has freckles-" and Hawkeye taps his cheekbones with the tips of his fingers. Freckles! See what they are? And her eyes-- Jesus, he knew they weren't brown but. Were they? Oh God, he was leaving Ellie to run back to the dead before the machines scooped them off the ground. There's fondness in his words, fear too. Hawkeye's nearly out of breath, his mind reeling. How many Tributes were there? And they all were raised at the Cornucopia, right? He didn't remember seeing Ellie there.

He's nearly breathless and so he swallows. Hawkeye swallows and pretends to calm himself and there's a loose, frantic little upturn to his lips when he says, "She likes to say 'fuck' a lot. Or 'fucking'. 'Fucker, fuck you, fuck that'- swears like a sailor, I swear. She's a sweetheart," like he was lovestruck himself in the purest sense. "She's a sweetheart but really tough. Tough as nails. Kili, you'll love her."