thearena | Pretending There's Nothing That You Aren't Prepared For [Open]

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Pretending There's Nothing That You Aren't Prepared For [Open]

WHO| Venus Dee Milo and open!
WHAT| Venus teleports around the Arena setting off danger and distributing supplies.
WHEN| Week One
WHERE| Everywhere in the Arena
WARNINGS| Death, explosions. Venus having some suicidal thoughts.

Venus has been dying for far longer than the two days she's been in the Arena. Ever since she got herself banged up on that mission against the Capitol, she's been biding time with increasing difficulty, trying to make it to the Arena so she can cover up for the internal bleeding that's killing her from the inside out. It's gotten more difficult, but thankfully she's had Porrim on her side, who's been able to taper off the amount of in-person interviews Venus has had to do and cut semi-nude shoots down to zero.

To finally be able to die instead of fighting it is a strange form of release. Venus thinks to herself as she crawls through the wormholes she rips into the fabric of space and time that it probably says something about her that death always feels like a relief, like relaxing after a long day's labor, rather than as something to fear. Having to stay alive has always been such an inconvenience for her, and she became a superhero because it was a clear-cut path towards dramatic, beautiful, and permanent ruin. It's eased in the last two years, this dogged pursuit towards a final end, and yet it's always there with her.

And so she's strangely sort of happy as she teleports around the Arena, looking for worthy allies to disperse her Cornucopia supplies to. The Gamemakers are coming for her, with rats and fires and claps of lightning. She emerges from nowhere, literally pulling herself from places out of eyesight or earshot, like a migraine in quick-motion to anyone watching where she blips back into reality, with a wild, jagged, beautiful smile on her face and a bag over her shoulder.

"Hey! You!" she'll call.

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"You can, but I'm not going to answer. Nothing to do with you." She would say not in front of the cameras, but that would be a dead giveaway. She pulls back her own witches robes slightly at a seam at the waist, revealing the ugly purple and brown and red bruise traveling from the line of her underwear up to where her skin disappears again under the cloth at a little above her ribs.

She sits too, as if Rose has given her permission to do so by doing it herself. She sighs and seems to collapse, almost, into a sort of artful spread, as if even with the tension of having to stay up and look strong cut she still needs to look pretty and graceful while she crumples on the floor - long ankles, long neck.

"I just need a few minutes to recharge my batteries and then I'm off to earplug fairy someone else." She gestures to her own witch robes. "You're Dee Five?"

It's natural the way Phil leaned against her hand, and he allowed himself to get closer to Venus, letting his forehead touch hers for the faintest of seconds, as if he crossed the line somehow. Gray knows the world is watching but it feels like they're alone, sharing this moment before Milo heads off again. He's doing his best not to break down, because unlike Fitzgerald, he knows she'll be back. He doesn't question how the Gamemakers do it but it keeps the Phone Guy going.

"Jesus Christ, Vee...I know you're strong but that can't be good in th-the best conditions," he spoke up, doting the superhero with all the attention he can give her. There was no way around what he thought about her, what he felt for her.

"What? Santa can be a black woman." She laughs and pulls out a packet from her bag. "Here, I can trust you to be a good guy, can't I? I mean, you're Steve Rogers."

She gets close enough to him to make contact and holds the packet out - it's full of little rubber earplugs. Up close it's somewhat more obvious that she's injured, that something about her pallor is off and her eyes are lightly unfocused, despite the brazen grin and the swagger in her walk.

"Got a bunch of these at the Cornucopia. Figure they'll come in handy eventually, right?"

He holds her eyes a moment in silence, looking for the answers she's giving him there. She's hurt -and bad enough she's not even bothering to find help- and this is her last hoorah. Everything in him wanted to fight against that -Jet wasn't the giving up type when it came to his friends, even if it was hopeless- but that manic happiness kept his mouth shut. Better she die on her terms than live a little longer on Jet's. At least he could rest easier knowing she was likely to be there when he woke up and saw her again.

He moved close again and pulled her into another gentle hug, his fingers brushing through her hair. "Okay. Is there anything I can do?"

That's mysterious, but there's any number of reasons a person could not want to tell. Maybe it was too brutal, maybe too personal. Maybe simple personal privacy. She's not quite expecting Venus to show her the mark, and she winces visibly at the size and mottling. Whatever caused that can't have been pleasant, and no more now, to say nothing of the internal issues.

"Fair enough."

The gesture evades her, spurring only an inward twitch of her eyebrows. "You'll have to tell me what you mean. I was put in these robes without choice or question, fitting though they might have been for reasons beyond this place."

"But at least I could bring you some earplugs, right?"

When he touches his forehead to hers, she moves her hand from his cheek to running through his hair before her wrist falls limply to her side. Her fingers seem swollen and discolored. She doesn't share Phil's faith that she'll wake up on the other side. The number of Tributes who've been in as many Arenas as she has dwindles every time.

"Do you want to kiss me?" she asks. She raises her eyes to look at him, between curious and plaintive and needy but not for a moment flirtatious, not with her usual casual shield that she keeps between her and the world. She cares, genuinely, about his answer.

"Oh, God. That sucks, just getting dropped in. I'm sorry." Venus folds her fingers together and rests them on her stomach, wincing with one side of her face as if trying to adjust a contact lens. "Basically, the country is divided into thirteen areas, Districts One through Twelve and then the Capitol, which is separate. All the Districts produce different goods, and the Capitol produces entertainment."

And a dictatorship - funny how Venus actually knows that now, when she used to believe entertainment was as noble and innocuous an export as that which came from the fields in District Eleven. Perhaps to become kinder and more educated is to become sadder; perhaps letting people in only means they load you up until you can no longer float.

"I've been to District Five. I'm one of the only Tributes left who has. They- we're fighting on their behalf. If one of us wins, from District Five, they'll get food and supplies. And believe me, they need it." Venus fondles her necklace, a crude wire and bead pendant that looks at odds against her otherwise-stylish appearance, against the permanent makeup she's had tattooed on before the Arena and the hairstyle that will resist getting too messy. "A little kid there gave me this, because the fact that we're fighting means that her older sister won't be conscripted into it."

"Right, and thanks," The offering was enough to bring a smile to Phil's face as he lets her hand play with his hair, as hurt and ravaged as she was. His fingers laced with hers, a sign of the affection he truly felt for Venus.

When she asked if he wanted to kiss her, it seemed time stopped for Gray. For the last five years, Phone Guy has not allowed himself to get close to anyone, to feel like he deserved a companion after everything that happened back home. He felt the failure breathing down his neck, a manic smile that filled him with fear and revenge, but not this time. He was with someone he cared for, admired even through the ever growing cracks in the starry mask that Milo wore. Phillip Gray finally allows himself to admit the fact that he loves her.

"Yes," Phil answered before his eyes met Milo's, his gaze speaking more than his mouth. Even his tone is that of acceptance and welcome, "I do."

She doesn't love him.

She doesn't not love him.

She's been so focused on her impending death and her loneliness and her loss that she hasn't thought about it, hasn't really examined the amorphous feelings that surround him, hasn't decided if that ease around him she carries or that laugh only he's able to get out of her or that happiness he's able to resurrect in her, when she was so certain that it had been ground out, was platonic or romantic. Maybe it never mattered. She didn't lend herself to planning for the long term or analyzing what the pining she felt was, whether it was loneliness or genuine affection that animated every smile she gave him and every batted lash.

At this moment she wants to leave him with something warm and kind and innocent and sweet to remember her by, in the very real circumstance that she might explode and never return, as may happen. As, she believes, will happen.

"Then do it," she says, craning up to him. "I want you to."

Maybe she does love him.

She gives him a squeeze.

"Keep me company while I catch my breath." Using his arm to steady herself, she takes a seat on the floor, crossing her legs and keeping her hand to her distended abdomen almost as if she were pregnant. "And pay it forward, but I know you will anyway."

She smiles up at him and pats the ground next to her. "You know, like, ten Arenas ago? I would never have said that. I was just out to get mine and die in the most beautiful way I could. I killed Steve Rogers, for God's sake. And now I'm twenty-two and- you know, maybe America has a point with putting the drinking age where it's at. I've grown so much."

Something about her sounds as if she's giving her own eulogy already.

"Bitter and dry? Or is that gin?" Venus can't stand any longer, and so she all but collapses into a kneel, panting hard enough that her shoulderblades look like a bird's wings pumping for altitude.

"Hey, no blaming me if I explode and rip you to shreds. You saw my exposé. You know I don't exactly have great control over all this." She swallows and grits her teeth, forcing herself not to be ripped apart by the energy coursing in her veins. It's like trying to hold back the tide with a spoon, and she won't last much longer. "Seriously. Get the backpack and go. Go, Shep, let me explode in peace."

Shyness would have no place in this moment, Phillip took the plunge and let his lips join hers. Venus felt hot, but that was probably her condition giving her a fever, it didn't matter. This moment was theirs and he would remember it to the day he truly died. If he were to die here or sent back to Freddy's, to be sliced and dismembered, this is the memory that would get him through it all. There was so much need behind that one token of affection because Gray knew she wasn't coming back from this. This kiss was their first hello this way and their last goodbye.

"More I didn't picture Santa being so pretty," he pauses and realizes that might not be appreciated, "Not that-" he just shakes his head and fidgets. Talking to women is still difficult at times, but even more so when he's already scared and unsure for reasons that don't have to do with talking to a beautiful woman.

But when she moves closer, he takes half a step back, more in caution than actual retreat, just not having expected her to close the distance more than it already had been. But her calling him a good guy, knowing who he is, it gives him some courage, as does how he can now see she's hurt. The realization quickly shifts his concern for his own self to her well being. He takes a step closer now, careful to accept the offered packet with a "Thank you."

He pauses before continuing, "You're not looking so hot, maybe you should sit," the concern is clear, but he knows they barely know each other, she might not want his help, but he can't not offer it. "I can- Let me help you?"

He joins her, sitting close enough so his knee can touch hers. He doesn't like the way she's talking, the tone more than words themselves, but it's the words he focuses on.

"Yeah, but we never think that at the time. Growing up isn't easy, there's all the crap to deal with and then you can throw realizing you were wrong and everyone else was right into that mix to make it worse."

He could remember his hot-shot self clearly and he could remember even thinking how none of the older cyborgs knew what they were talking about when they said he still 'had to grow up.' Eighteen going on 59 was plenty grown in his opinion. Over thirty years later, he could definitely look back and notice how wrong he'd been.

He gave a smirk. "We probly wouldn't have gotten along so well if I'd been around back then. Unless I'd been younger too, then we might have just terrorized the town together." And probably terrorized each other too. "Course, as much as it might say one thing, it says something else you were able to off Captain America of all people. Not saying it's generally a good thing, but it's sure as hell impressive."

She knows how to kiss for cameras, how to turn someone on, how to perform, but that's not how she kisses him now. She doesn't move much, just presses her lips to his with a shy reservation, feeling his cool against her as sweat begins to trickle down the corner of her temple.

"You'll see me again. Promise," she says, and even though she doesn't mean it she certainly sounds like she does, sells it like she could sell ice to an eskimo with those bright eyes and that trustworthy grin. She rests her forehead against his.

"It makes me wonder why God didn't just shove fully-formed human brains into baby bodies. I mean, free will still, but none of the stupidity that comes from being young." Venus sighs, groans slightly and adjusts herself. "Then again, I guess we couldn't have innocence if we did that."

The pain of her injuries and the fever from her sepsis are starting to unspool her mind, drawing out thoughts that normally would be sewn up into something cogent before exiting her mouth. She rests her knee against his.

"Well, it doesn't count for much. He just stood there to make a point. Made me look like a real asshole." Venus thinks she could have taken him, but it certainly would have been a fight. "Anyway. I think young you could have used someone on your side. I know I could have. But it's better to have you late than never, Jet."

"Well, now you're just being a charmer." By contrast, Venus acts entirely at home talking to men, tamping down any insecurity she might feel under the way she's been told she was beautiful since she was a teenager talking to talent scouts, that she had 'natural charm' and a 'killer body'. She talks to Steve the way she does most men, keeping them in that arm's length area where he's flirted with but would have to fight his way in to learn anything important about her.

She puts a hand up in a gentle gesture and doesn't come any closer, lets him approach her and take the pack, and when he tells her to sit she lowers herself with the kind of artificial grace that isn't really conducive to healing so much as looking good.

"Nah, Steve. This kind of hurt isn't something you can help." She smiles at him, entirely at peace with her own mortality. Embracing it, even, as the potential for an end. "I could use company until I make my next jump though."

Phil doesn't want her to go, because she will die as soon as she tries to teleport. He knows it's a childish dream, that if she stays here, nothing bad will happen to her. He gently wiped the sweat from her face, as silent tears ran down his cheeks. Phone Guy is no stranger to loss, and he's seen such brutal things happen to children and adults...but none of them felt this close to his heart.

"Promise," Gray felt so small and insignificant but this is the promise that he holds on to keep going, to give his best shot at protecting the kids here, and to keep his head high. Venus gave him a breath of life just as District 6 gave him new purpose. He kissed her forehead and whispered three words against her skin: I love you.. Might as well tell her now than never have another chance.

"W-Whenever you're ready," the former night shift guard said, wiping away his face.

"Yeah, well, that doesn't get said about me often," Steve gives an uneasy shrug, one that makes his shoulders pop, his the wry tone more self deprecating than actually amused. Maybe he's charming when he has a script on stage or when he's comfortable, but this is neither of those things. He's just being awkwardly honest, not even flirting.

Steve's face falls a little when she says he can't help, but he gets it too, he can see in her what he's seen in himself before: she's made her choice. And Steve can respect that. He's not about to strap her down and force medical attention on her, not after all he's been through.

He gives her an understanding nod, no pity there, just empathy. "I- yeah, I think I could do that," Steve hesitates for a second, before sitting too, keeping some distance between them. He's quiet for a long moment, "So, you, uh, teleport?" Honestly, he has no idea what to say, he guesses this is better than pointing out all the places he's been beat up over the years.

She feels him say it, but she convinces herself he said something else, something less intimate and easier to say in return. It's not that she doesn't feel it, but that she's yet name it, so natal is this feeling between them. She pulls herself to her feet and gives him a gentle hug that's ginger more for her sake than his, then takes a few steps back.

"See you on the flipside, Phil."

And like that, she vanishes into thin air.

"I have a hard time believing that." She almost makes a comment that he hardly needs charm when he usually has the sort of bodies most men dream feverishly of, but she knows that at this moment that could be considered cruel. When her face was branded, when she lost her beauty, any reminder of the gap between the power she had when pretty and the power she held while ugly twisted in her gut like a knife.

She nods. "Yeah, ever since before I was a teenager. It's like, you know, looking at a travelogue? All these amazing destinations? And I just pick one in my mind and then I wiggle through timespace a little and I'm there. You know, it should have been easy, but it took me a long time to realize what an amazing power it is."

She shrugs. "And it's limited in here, but I guess it's nice to see the whole place before I expire."

He thinks of Ivan when she says that. Ivan's mind was that of a full grown adult, he had genius-level intellect with the wisdom of someone over a hundred years old...and he was stuck in the body of a baby. True, he'd grown a little, but in thirty years his body had developed by maybe a bit over one year. He'd be a child for a long time into their eternity together. Well, apart from the fact he was already dead like the others. He shied away from that thought as always.

"Because God likes to have a laugh like everyone else. I don't know if anyone's told you this, but God's an asshole." He gives her a smirk, but it fades a little, not in sincerity but in luster. "Yeah, you're probably right. I guarantee he wouldn't have agreed, but there's a lot of mistakes back there that he wouldn't have made if someone had had his back."

His hand went to her knee that was in contact with his. "I'm glad I've got you now, too. We can be on each other's sides and maybe stop a mistake or two from happening along the way."

Edited 2015-09-17 05:44 (UTC)

"My grandma would kick your ass for saying that about the Lawd," Venus says, deepening her Georgian accent that she usually hides until she's doing an apt parody of the voice of a woman who's been dead for over a decade, and then she laughs. Her laughter turns into not a cough, not a gurgle, but a strange sort of pant.

"Maybe we could have made better mistakes." She shakily drags herself to her feet, wheezing still, using his shoulder to steady her. "I should get moving. If I stay here too long, I might blow you to kingdome come on accident. And then Albert will have my head..."

She's forgotten Albert isn't here anymore. She feels feverish and takes a step back from Jet.

He almost cracks a joke to follow hers, but her strained laughter brings him up short and serves as a sharp reminder of exactly where they are and how okay things aren't right now. For a few seconds, he'd forgotten and been swept away simply by being with her.

That was what they could have done for each other, way back when they'd both needed it.

She rises and he's quick to follow, his hand darting out to grab her wrist as he steps forward. He knows Albert's supposed to be in 13, but there's a small look of pain to his face with her words. It's for the best that it happens, for all intents and purposes, Albert is still dead.

"No, V, he's gone." His other hand comes up to her face and she's much warmer than she should be, which only makes him more insistent. "You're sick, stay here and rest some more."

He knew, he could see it in her face and hear it in her voice, she didn't have long, but that didn't make him any better at simply accepting that.

She gently pries his fingers from her wrist.

"No." It isn't negotiable, because her death will not be like slipping into warm, dark water. She's only just now keeping her body from ripping itself apart with a supernatural fury, a frenzy that will tear apart any matter, living or dead, in her immediate vicinity. And if Jet's noticing how hard she's trying - if her ability to hide the pain has finally peeled away, after weeks and weeks of masking her injuries - then it's time to go.

She forces herself to stagger back from him, waving the hand that is still warm from his shoulder.

"I'll see you on the other side," she says, as the dimension warps around her and swallows her up from the ankles first, as she tucks herself away into a pocket of space and time. And then she's gone.

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Pretending There's Nothing That You Aren't Prepared For [Open]

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