alder-reid

[alder-reid]

"You are not the only person who has suffered, don't you try to tell me it was you and only you, you self-absorbed, hypocritical prick." His full attention was on Slate now, sponsors and Linden temporarily forgotten in the heat of anger he didn't realize hadn't gone cold yet. It surprised even him, the force of it, its suddenness, but he meant every word. He'd been wanting to give Slate a piece of his mind for a while now. "Everyone has suffered. Everyone has made sacrifices. Everyone has lost people, and wishes it was them instead. You are not the goddamn Voice of the People, the fucking people are."

"I am fucking ashamed," Slate snapped, frustrated. It was true; and yet it was also true that he had gotten so little room to stumble from his former friends and allies, so little grace in the wake of something they had pushed him into. "I'm sorry you've always been perfect and I'm not, but rumor has it you've got the rains of shit now, and I want back in on what I fucking built." He believed in the T0MMYKN0CK3R, missed it, wanted to be involved. The zine, the radio, everything. He felt like he'd just awoken from a six month slumber and realized that he'd let everything important slip through his fingers.

"I get that you don't trust me, but who went to jail for our crimes?" His voice was low, his finger jabbing his own chest. "Who burned all of the evidence and risked arrest instead of running away? Who refused to give a single goddamn name under torture? Don't act like that shit doesn't matter because it does, you -- and Nano, and Cat, everyone -- owe me." And instead they'd all just... turned away.

#slate #135

[alder-reid]

It was more complicated than that and they both knew it perfectly well. Slate alone hadn't forced the Capitol's decision to bomb Twelve, but he didn't have the energy to go into it, nor did he think Slate would hear it. What was his game here, anyway? Was this some sort of trick to get Alder to start spilling Vox details to him? After six months of this, he was suddenly supposed to take Slate not-apologizing while in the Tower at face value? Say "Oh, okay, you're right, no worries! Welcome back."?

"You should be ashamed. But I'm not sure what you want me to do about it," he said coldly, in part paranoid this was a trap, but in part simply unwilling to let Slate back in. His betrayal had cut deep, it still stung.

"They bombed my district because of me," Slate snapped, and his aim hadn't been to defend himself, in fact the opposite, but he couldn't help himself. "My brother died. Because some people decided it was important that I live." He didn't know if Alder had been part of the plan or not, but he couldn't let go of his resentment for everyone who had been, who'd made the decision for him and put him into an impossible position. "But-- I know it was wrong, I'm fucking ashamed for rolling over for Snow, and I want to make it right. You're right, I want to protect everyone's fucking kids, not just mine."

#slate #135

[alder-reid]

"She's doing that to all of us. That's sortof the whole fucking point," he snapped back, unmoved. "I'm sorry that once it's personal to you that you jumped ship immediately, but there are a whole lot of people out there, in the Districts, with babies too. And no amount of sucking up in the world is keeping their kids safe."

Slate knew he'd need to do some groveling, but it didn't come naturally to him, far from it. He lowered his hands. "Sorry, I-- I am sorry. I'm really fucking sorry. When I was in the hospital, Snow came to me, she gave me a threat -- gave my baby a threat. I... I had no choice-- or I felt like I had no choice. Had to protect my family." It was an explanation, an appeal to Alder's understanding.

#slate #135

[alder-reid]

Alder waited. Nothing followed.

"Great apology," he shot back dryly. Normally he'd let that go, but this was too big-- if Slate really meant it, he'd have a lot of apologizing and even more explaining to do. How the fuck was he supposed to trust that any of this was real? "What is it you really want, Slate?"

He had expected this, and in fact he deserved this, but he was still him, and he didn't like taking a beating. Didn't matter if the Peacekeepers were punishing him for something he'd done, or if it was a former friend. "I come with my hands up, surrender," he said, though he did not, in fact, put his hands up, instead approached the table without being invited to do so. "An apology, first." But an apology was not actually forthcoming, as he left it at that.

#slate #135

[alder-reid]

Alder held his breath and bounced his leg up and down. If he was hooked up to one of the tribute monitors he had pulled up for Linden right now, propped up on the table so he could watch it in tandem with the Games on the screen mounted to the wall, he was sure his heart would be pounding just as fast, his blood pressure elevated to mirror hers.

The Arena was on fire. Little glimpses of the end of his own Arena came in flashes-- a bright, burning Cornucopia, the silhouettes of people he cared for and hated dying against it-- and he had to force himself to push them back, far back into the recesses of his mind.

"She just needs to stay ahead of it," he said aloud to Forest, a pointless thing to say, really. Linden was going to do what she was going to do, they couldn't control that.

@forestd7

#forest #135 #day 5

[alder-reid]

Alder glanced up from the table, stiffening when he realized it was Slate. He really didn't have the patience for this right now. Al had just died and Linden was reeling from the impacts of whatever the Gamemakers had put into that ride she'd gotten stuck on. She was vulnerable right now, and he was determined to make sure she didn't go down now too.

"What do you want?" he asked sharply, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms. His expression drew closed, bracing himself for whatever it was that Slate had to say. He knew like everyone else that Cress had gone into the labor the night before, and he wasn't totally emotionless to that, but if Slate was here to try to get him to play nice too for the sake of his child? He might lose it completely.

It wouldn't be an easy conversation. In fact, it'd probably be a deeply shitty conversation. Alder would have to be convinced, and so would Nano, and so would Cat, and really everyone -- he'd burned some bridges, and he knew it'd be work to rebuild them, if he possibly could.

Stubbornly, though, he held his own card in his hand, the fact that he'd built TH3 T0MMYKN0CK3R before, he could fucking build it again, with or without their permission.

Holding Kya had reignited the spark, brought who he really was, who he'd used to be, back into action, and he wasn't going to wait. He returned to the Tower to collect his and Cress's items, to take care of any final things that needed to be done for Finch and Ash, dead now, and to speak with his friends. His former friends. He wasn't sure.

He found Alder on the seventh floor. Probably the toughest one to convince, so why the hell not start now? "Knock knock," he said as the elevator doors dinged open, as if he hadn't shown his entire ass last time they'd seen each other, as if he hadn't been the worst version of himself. He wouldn't even be here, wouldn't have the courage, if it weren't for the thought of Kya and the fact that they had twelve years. Twelve years to build a better world.

So no time for fucking dilly dallying.

@alder-reid

#slate #135 #day 3 #?

[alder-reid]

Alder huffed dryly, shaking his head. "No. No, I have a feeling that wasn't personal to you, he did it to me too." He pinched a piece of popcorn between his fingers, chewing on the inside of his lip. "He's-- I mean, I want to think he's still in there, but I'm not as sure about it the longer it goes on. And I know things change when you have a kid, but..." Wouldn't that make you want the Games to stop even more?

Nano popped another piece into his mouth, trying to see what would happen if he didn't chew. The kernel dissolved in his spit, to his surprise. "Just wondering if I was the only one he told to go fuck themself."

#nano #135 #day 2 #mb135

[alder-reid]

Alders gaze fixed on his popcorn bag. It wasn't that he hadn't been expecting someone to ask him about Slate eventually, but he'd maybe hoped that this would be a lighter moment. "Yeah," he replied, expression drawn. He didn't know what to think about Slate anymore, not after what he'd said to him in his home in Seven. "Yeah, I've talked to him. Why?"

Nano took a handful from the bag, filling his cheeks with it, surprised at the texture. He chewed awkwardly for a minute, slowly, swallowing before sniffing the remaining bagful. "Huh." It was a lackluster appraisal, but Nano still pulled out another handful, so it was decent enough. "They're like opposites," he noted. "This is all...shape." There wasn't a better term for it. The food was highly structured, hard and sharp even, where the kernels were. "And casseroles have no shape at all. It's just mush." Nano smiled at that, amused by the opposites of their districts, by the joy of sharing something across their siloed district lines (even if it was being poorly appropriated).

"Hey, I was meaning to ask you," Nano said through a mouthful of popcorn. "Have you talked to Slate since he got out?"

#nano #135 #day 2 #mb135

[alder-reid]

Now that he thought about it, he had no idea whether it was a Seven thing, or just something that someone had managed to make work in Seven. Maybe the latter if the Capitol was doling it out? And what about casserole, would they have a ball sometime featuring various casseroles? He didn't know, but it didn't seem out of the question, frankly.

He got enough for the both of them, then, as promised, rounded the back of the booth and dropped down onto the concrete next to some electrical hookups. There was still the hum of machines and the sound of the raucous crowd, but it was more muffled back here, and the lights weren't so bright. "Cheers," he said to Nano, holding out his popcorn bag to tap against Nano's.

He tried a bite then made a face. "Ugh. Not enough salt. And too sweet like everything else here but... I'm hungry, and I'm fucking sick and tired of being out there. Fuck these people." So he took another handful.

"It's...uh..." But Nano honestly wasn't sure. "You just like...put shit in a baking dish, really. Pretty sure it's to make things stretch a little further. Canned veggies, mostly. Maybe some chicken, if you can get it. But they also make dessert casseroles, so--" Nano was wracking his mind trying to decipher what it was like to be dolled out a steaming pile of gruel. He'd never really considered how it was made or what it contained before. "I think you put some sort of soup in it? Or like...fuck, I don't know." Three wasn't exactly a culinary oasis, but he did like kringle. He looked blankly at Alder, not really registering. "Must be from Seven?" It sounded like it, like a snack Alder would munch on from ten feet up in a tree or something. "Alright, well, order up. Let's try some."

#nano #135 #day 2 #mb135

[alder-reid]

"What the fuck is a casserole?" he asked, mystified. If he'd heard it in any other context, he'd have sworn it must be a type of hat worn by Capitolites that had gone out of fashion or something.

Alder blinked, then continued to explain kettle corn, which sounded way off from what Nano was picturing, if he had to venture a guess. "No, it's-- it's popcorn. But sweet and salty. Like a dessert."

Nano laughed, a hiccuping sound, just a beat longer than a scoff. "Yeah, I know." He hated the tip-toeing, the backtracking, even if it was for good cause. "But you're probably not wrong." That was the worst part: that Nano's fears -- his delusions, as the doctors called them -- weren't that far off.

"Kettle corn?" Nano repeated, shaking his head. "We have corn casserole? Is it like that?" He didn't even care what the food was, really. It was just nice to hide out, to sit and talk.

#nano #135 #day 2 #mb135

[alder-reid]

"I'm not scared of heights," he replied, finding it suddenly very important that Sheen know that. That there were some things that didn't immediately send him breaking out into a cold sweat. "I wouldn't say it's natural for everyone, but it's hard to not climb trees when you're surrounded by them in Seven and you don't have a lot else to play with."

He eyed the ferris wheel as they turned away from the sponsor, as though he didn't even exist. He cast him a furtive, half-apologetic wave behind them, one he didn't feel sincerely, then forgot him entirely. "The ferris wheel is no problem, but no, I've never been on one."

Sheen waved his hand when Alder told him that he didn't know if he was going to need that, rather Sheen chuckled a little when Alder confessed that he wasn't good at the ring toss either. "Ok, no ring toss either. Honestly I can't stand the duck game, so we're just going to skip that altogether." He moved his hand to his chin, rubbing it in thought for a few seconds before he snapped his fingers together.

"We'll just have to go on the ferris wheel together!" Sheen had never been on one before, but he wanted to try it out, and decided in this moment Alder would be joining him, he wanted to or not. Grabbing the other Mentor's hand, he casually pulled him along. "Have you ever been on a ferris wheel before? Wait, you aren't scared of heights are you? Wait wait, you're a lumberjack, or you were? Or you come from them? Climbing things is natural to you Seven people, yeah?"

#sheen #135 #day 2 #mb135

[alder-reid]

Everything about that sounded like a nightmare to him, but he decided it would be impolite to emphasize as much when Pyxis was being kind enough to not insult him for not knowing the first thing about exercise. So he nodded, as though the idea of tying a rock to himself and plunging into the cold depths of the ocean didn't make icy panic claw up his throat.

The clinical, exacting gaze that followed did not help the feeling, as though Pyxis was physically deconstructing him in her mind. It did incline him to follow her obediently to the mats, both intrigued by the expertise she was drawing on, and a little afraid of what might happen if he resisted. And his back did hurt. He sat down, crossing his legs and tapping his fingers anxiously against his knee. "Does this hurt?" he asked, caution clear in his tone.

"Sometimes, yeah," she answered, a wistful look coming over her face. "But most of the time it was to find oysters. They live on the bottom of the ocean in the rocks, so you have to swim down to get them. We put weights on, too, to help us get down faster. So when it's time to come up, you have to fight against them too. Not so much that they drag you down, but if you didn't have them on it would be hard to stay near the bottom. Although some of us also liked to jump in with a nice rock. Just tugs you right down," she said with a borderline feral smile. That kind of diving was rarely for oysters and almost always for the young swimming to get their kicks trying to go as deep as possible as fast as they can.

Nodding to his answer though, she brought her always fleeting focus to look at Alder's shoulders. The trainer in her came out as she narrowed her eyes, as if trying to see each muscle under his skin. "Alright, here is what we're going to do. We're going to try to get you a little stretched out today, ease that tension so its not living in your upper back. Come sit on the mat with me, and I'll show you how its done."

#pyxis #135 #day 1

[alder-reid]

It was a terrible idea, and still he held out his hand out of some strange, awkward sense of obligation to the trade. "Is it-- oh my God, it's real," he realized, holding the goldfish up to eye-level and examining it. It seemed limp and sad in there, suspended in the bag with nowhere to go. He turned the bag, realizing its scales caught the lights in an unnatural, definitely Capitol-altered way. "Poor thing, what'd they do to it?"

"Sure!" Denver said, a little too quickly. She was still bummed at having missed out on the teddy bear earlier. And the pink dog reminded her of the one she'd seen on Reaping day, the one who knocked over Everett Lance's donuts. It was kind of perfect. "Wanna trade?" Denver held out her goldfish, grimacing slightly at it. It wasn't the goldfish's fault, really, and the neon yellow scales were really cool - were they glowing or was it just the party lighting and the multiple cocktails? - but she absolutely did not want to keep it.

#denver #135 #day 2 #mb135

[alder-reid]

"Well, I probably can't get us far. You and I probably have undercover Capitol agents or something tailing us at these things." He rubbed the back of his neck, then remembering everything Nano had been through, added, "Kidding. Really."

He wasn't, or at least, he mostly wasn't. He didn't exactly want to put the theory that an escape would be impossible to the test.

He looped his arm around Nano's. "I did find some kettle corn, and the guy there let me hide out behind the stand where it was quiet. You ever had kettle corn? It makes everything better."

Nano blinked, a little fuzzy beneath the haze of alcohol. He wasn't supposed to be drinking on his meds. He knew it. Link knew it. So, naturally, Nano was avoiding Link. "Hey," he smiled, though maybe just the corners turned up. "This shit's the worst." A huff of agreement, and he offered an arm out, sleeve covered with teddy bears stitched to the fabric. "If you can get me the fuck out of here, you win a prize."

#nano #135 #day 2 #mb135 #honestly i feel like I could see kettle corn existing in 7 #no explanation just vibes #like super rare treat you get it maybe once a year on a special occasion but it'd definitely be achievable

[alder-reid]

Alder sputtered out a surprised laugh, and a sudden heat crept up the back of his neck, unwelcomed. "I-- I don't know if that's going to be--"

Worse still, the sponsor was looking on, appearing equal parts puzzled as unimpressed that Sheen's attention was so easily captured. Alder had to look away to keep himself from surely spontaneously combusting of humiliation.

"I'm not good at the ring toss either," he finished, wishing immediately he'd had something, anything, better to say than that. He quickly drowned the feeling by emptying his glass.

"It is a good idea...it's a way to just....get away from everything and forget whats going on." Sheen was nodding his head listening to Alder, before smiling. "Nice try? That was all, it didn't give you like a....score or anything?" Casually he squeezed Alder's biceps. "Though you know with these guns I can't believe you didn't get higher. Show me where it is? Maybe I can teach it a lesson for you, a few swings from me should show it not to be so nasty, yeah? Though I'll expect you win me something from the ring toss as compensation for beating up the rude test your strength machine."

#sheen #135 #day 2 #mb135

[alder-reid]

The sponsor, at least, seemed to be losing interest by the second with Alder's presence. Not that he particularly blamed him-- he was hardly ever the life of the party at these things. More often than not, he went out of his way to be a bummer if both his tributes were already lost. Of course, with Linden still alive, he tried to reel it in.

"Yeah this carnival thing is-- you know, it's a... uh, a good idea," he answered carefully, not sure he could bring himself to go as far as qualify these events as ever being "fun." "It's cool to have some other stuff to do, like the games. Even if the test your strength thing gave me a passive aggressive 'nice try'. I'm choosing to not take it personally." He shrugged, then took another sip of his drink. It wasn't the worst of the ones he'd tried that evening, something that tasted like apples and cinnamon and burned in his throat.

As it registered it was Alder he was talking to Sheen all but shoved the sponsor he had been saying goodbye to away. Wanting nothing more than to be alone with Alder. He hadn't seen him since the tributes arrived, and he was sure that Alder had been busy working with Linden, and she was doing so well in the arena it seemed. Grinning when he heard the stylist's name,

"Oh, oh yeah, yeah I know them, they're uh great.." Sheen felt himself leaning more onto Alder, almost dropping himself across the Mentor from Seven. "You always look so good though, you know? I just, I don't even think I could look as good." He brought his drink to his lips, his smile growing. "You having a good time?"

#sheen #135 #mb135 #day 2

[alder-reid]

Alder glanced down at what he was wearing. This was basic, he should know the name of who made what he was wearing, but if he was being honest, he had no fucking clue. "Duckie Mc... Light... McLightdrop." Maybe it was a concoction of what was on his mind (the stupid duck match game, he felt like he could win it, it must be rigged...), but considering the company around them? It felt like a reasonable name. He offered a shy smile to Sheen and the sponsor, hoping it would help the panicked lie land. "They're-- they're new."

Sheen had a tribute left in the games, he should have been going to the ball on full alert. He should have prepared to work with sponsors to secure more support for Jade. Perhaps, though, the ether would help him relax, it would boost his confidence and make it easier for him to socialize with Sponsors, thereby getting her more money. Or Sheen was just being selfish, and he just wanted to run away from his feelings of feeling like an absolute failure. Regardless of his intentions, and what was going to happen, here he was at the Mentor Ball, high on the ether he'd bought from Mahlon.

The sponsors seemingly enjoyed how much more social he was being, a wide smile across his face, he had one arm wrapped around one sponsor's shoulder, and a drink in the other, as he sold Jade to them, securing his third? fourth? new donation tonight. He was bidding them fair well when he saw a familiar face. Sheen bounced over to them, quickly putting an arm around their shoulder.

"Wow! Don't you look absolutely stellar! Talk about the belle of the ball. I'm almost jealous over how much better than me you look. Tell me who dressed you, you have to."

#sheen #135 #mb135 #day 2