wunderkind | OPEN POST pt III

-1-
pick a character

-2-
leave me a comment. maybe a scenario, maybe an AU scenario, maybe a picture, maybe a word,
maybe a request to resume old game canon, maybe just a comment.
i don't care. do your worst.

-2a-
helpful note: i am currently obsessed with the Walking Dead, coffee, summertime, AUs, and vampires. can you combine those into one tag?

-3-
let's get it on, like we did last summer

disclaimer: we probably won't get it on
+ there are no promises i will take this seriously

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Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

doggedly

The year goes on, but there isn't much of it left. And the world has changed, without Voldemort, but in so many ways it is just the same. Maybe it's that the differences should be more obvious, painted in broader strokes, brighter colours and sunnier skies, a sense of darkness lifted from everything and everyone.

But it all feels the same, generally. After the celebrations die down, life goes largely back to normal. The Prophet is still reporting on the incident at the party. The trials for the few remaining Death Eaters are ongoing. The Ministry is piecing itself back together, reconstructing its former structure without much thought to change. And some of the structure of the wizarding world is climbing back into place. The downfall of Voldemort was crippling for some of the old families. For others--for the Blacks--

It's all about endurance, outliving your enemies. One of the oldest Black family traditions. Maybe their crest ought to be a couple of cockroaches. Toujours Pur.

The semester is nearly over. Last year at Hogwarts. Things should be very different to that regard, too. The hallways are crammed with students eager to be free of their exams, eager to be in the thick of their summer, a jovial chaos that Sirius has no part in.

He hasn't been home since the night that it happened. When he tries to frame a homecoming, he comes up only with the sight of the front door of Grimmauld Place.

He's sitting on the windowsill of one of the upper floors, smoking a cigarette out the window and watching a group of second years down in one of the courtyard. This vantage point suits him, far away from everything else.

A footfall behind him catches his attention, and he looks around, sharply, the cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.

From:

axeyou

Two years later, and Johanna's stylist is still cutting her dresses out of a fabric she says is the color of evergreens, the same color as the evergreen trees in District 7, but District 7 is covered in pines and firs and birches and all kinds of trees, it isn't like they say it is.

Except maybe it is, now. Maybe when they finally let her go back, this time, the trees will all be different. It always looks a little different each time. The Capitol can do whatever it wants. The Arena had changed around her, like something out of a nightmare. Cliffs where there hadn't been cliffs before, a sheer drop, hundreds of feet. A river running with blood, and then the river swelled, became a flood. Lightning striking a tree--and one of the other Tributes laying on the ground a moment later, black, burned, smoking, before a ship had come along, smoothly, and plucked up the body, carried it away, and there was nothing on the ground but a little black smudge that the rain had quickly washed away.

Johanna had seen it happen. It was okay: she was going to kill the boy anyways. She wasn't going to die, crying and scared, pissing herself. She was going to win and go home and it was all going to be over, all of it, that's what she said to herself every night, like it was some sort of fucking prayer. But it was only the Capitol watching over her. And no one was going to make her prayers come true except her, and she had, and now here she was, standing in this dress that doesn't look a thing like evergreen. All her wounds stitched up and fresh long ago. All her sweat and blood wiped away. Clean and new and still victorious, one of the lucky ones.

And now there's a new game, same as there was the year before, and the year before that. Johanna would say that this is the part that she hates the most, but there are so many parts of this that she hates. Choosing just one would not only be unfair, it would be inaccurate. But standing around in a single room with all of the other Victors from the years previous--all of the mentors, waiting to really meet their Tributes, to make empty little gestures and give advice and suggestions that will do them next to no good--it's fucking nauseating.

Her first round of mentoring, Johanna had gotten really drunk at this part. That was the same year that she'd really met Finnick. Where the hell is he now, she thinks, sharply, as she surveys the room. All of the other mentors are dressed in the best, the clothes that their stylists still cut for them, for public appearances. And there is no appearance more public than these parts, the introductions of the Games. Their celebrity status gets hyped all over again. Worse for the more memorable Victors, and the more recent.

And where the fuck is Finnick. Johanna grabs a glass of wine as an Avox whisks past her, bearing a tray full of glasses. She downs a mouthful, and then a second, glaring around at the glittering mentors. It takes her a moment to realize that she's come to a stop to stand just beside Kate Bishop, the mentor from District 1. She is too pretty, too polished and smooth, like a cat someone's groomed to gleaming perfection, or a statue of an owl carved out of ivory and ebony. Smooth and beautiful and standing here, off to the side, and Johanna glares at her without much conviction.

"Lovely party," she drawls, raising her glass at Kate. "Isn't it."

Edited Date: 2014-09-23 04:40 am (UTC)

From:

alsohawkeye

Her dress is all black and gold, sleek lines and harsh angles, a subtle geometric pattern that catches the light like the facets cut into a gem. District One always has the best stylists. Her hair is a sinuous coil that glitters more subtly than her dress, gold thread woven through the loose mass that tumbles down one shoulder. There was a suggestion of gold-leaf patterning on the shaved side of her head but she talked them down to an especially elaborate earring instead, a cuff that follows the curve of the shell, a tiny chain looped and dangling from each of the holes.

"As always." Kate seems like she ought to be looking down her nose at Johanna, she has that sort of bearing, that sort of profile. But when she turns they're eye to eye in heels and Kate smiles, just a little, around the rim of her own wine glass.

It's not that it isn't real, she just tends more ice queen than not in public these days. Some Victors get stuck in roles, trapped playing the same part every Games over and over. Kate's had the dubious honor of growing up before the Capitol's eyes, and over the years been able to make some transitions, first from faux-vapid socialite over the course of her games to whatever she was after. Clever bitch, vicious genius, unhinged party girl - opinions have varied wildly. The last few years, since Johanna's Games, she's seemed to aim for something more like elder statesman, and despite being all of twenty one she succeeds more than not. (If she were a little taller she might be down right majestic.) Her fellow Mentors mostly know better than to buy the colder sides of it.

She finishes her wine and collects another glass from the next Avox by. It doesn't take long. "Trees again, I see. Not that green's a bad color on you but seriously. That does not bode well for your pair's showing at the parade this year."

Edited (pointless second-guessing) Date: 2014-09-23 12:54 pm (UTC)

From:

jurisimpudent

Edgeworth isn't exactly used to going unnoticed. He's spent the past year as a prefect, after all - and in spite of what he'd expected, he hadn't ended up stripped of that title. (In truth he probably ought to have been. After all, one doesn't break that many rules - one does not kill a man - and retain one's badge. But Dumbledore had asked him if he'd wanted to retain his position, and he'd honestly said yes, and that had been enough, and so he's a prefect still.) You get a certain presence when you're a prefect, get looked at, but only as a figure of authority. People run away. They don't goggle. They don't whisper when you pass. They treat you as a threat, not as a curiosity.

He wishes he could go back to how it was.

And that's why, when he sees Sirius leaning out the window across the way, he makes an immediate line for him. Things certainly aren't normal between him and Black, but Black treats him like a person. He can come up behind him, and when he turns, he can say -

"No smoking indoors."

And then lean against the wall next to the other boy, and look out the window, down at the kids down there. He feels old in a way he's never felt before.

From:

axeyou

Johanna's fierceness might imply an overcompensation to some degree, like she's got some inferiority complex that she has to overcome. But she doesn't. If her win has taught her some nasty lessons, it has also reinforced her sense of self-preservation. There is no one that Johanna can rely on but herself, and she can't do that while crippled with self-doubt.

But even with those massive chips on her shoulders, Johanna still gets the sense of Kate looking down her nose. And she hates it. She hasn't bothered much with her, in the two years that she's been forced to attend these things. Whatever Kate's story is, she's not really interested. Finnick has filled her in on everyone's details, little pieces of information here and there. It will be a long time until Johanna knows as much as him. She might not ever know as much as he does. Finnick is someone people like to talk to. Johanna isn't. It's amazing that they get along as well as they do, but maybe it's an opposites attract sort of thing. Or maybe it's that they've all got the common thread of their victories, tying them together, no matter who they are or where they come from.

But that means she's linked to Kate Bishop, too, who looks beautiful in a cold and distant way, a far cry from the girl simpering in Cesar Flickerman's interview chair, twirling a strand of her long dark hair around her finger--and a far cry, too, from the girl in the Arena. Some people had suggested that she'd snapped at the sight of blood, gone crazy. Johanna had always known better. The first part was the act. The second part was real. That makes them cut nearly from the same cloth, though Johanna's act was better. (A fact: because Kate Bishop had already done an in-Arena transformation, Johanna had to be extra convincing during her own Game. And she had. That makes her better.)

And no matter what she thinks about Kate, no matter how cool and aloof and gorgeous she looks--none of it makes Johanna want to talk to her about dresses and colors and parades. She would rather eat razorblades right now.

"My pair. You say that like they're little animals. But I guess they are, sort of." Girls talking about girl things, that's them. Johanna swirls her wine in her glass and gives Kate another thorough once-over, lingering on a few key places on her body. Directness throws people, sometimes, even other Victors. Probably it won't actually do anything to Kate Bishop, but Johanna likes that challenge. "Don't tell me you came over here just to drink with me and talk shit about trees."

From:

doggedly

Sirius' mouth jumps, briefly, into something that's very close to a smile--more an acknowledgement of his presence, and the near-joke of forbidden him the right to smoke where he wants. He does not like Edgeworth, still. He does not like that he understands him at all.

But he doesn't snarl at him and order him away. Instead, he flicks ash from the end of the cigarette, lets it fall into the courtyard below.

"Says who," he challenges, somewhat flatly. "The prefect, or the hero of Hogwarts?" Which is a very particular phrasing that Edgeworth is sure to hate, but Sirius says it anyways, and raises his cigarette to his mouth again. "I'd offer you one, but I don't want to waste my breath."

From:

jurisimpudent

"Don't," Edgeworth says in response to both that sardonic not-offer and to that question. When other people use terms like that, when they start speaking of heroism and all that nonsense, Edgeworth gets very quiet; this quiet discomfort has the unfortunate side effect of making him appear stoic and modest, which is quite becoming in a hero, which helps the image that he hates. When Black uses that word, though, he's droll and sardonic, and so Edgeworth can be caustic back at him, and it all feels very natural and comfortable.

Especially because he can add this: "Or I'll start talking about your heroism as well." There's a cold, frightening edge to that mock-threat, of course, because it is the noble Black family and the threat of their hatred that's kept Sirius quiet, more than anything else, more than any modesty, more than Ministry pressure. Sirius' awful damned father, if he knew the truth, would cut his son out, or worse...And Edgeworth does know that. And so that's why he makes it sound wry and sardonic, like that's not a factor, like it's a simple threat of making Sirius face all that idiocy. And that's why he lowers his voice when he says it, and looks away. But he still says it, because...

Because, well: perhaps making the joke makes the issue of Sirius' rotten family seem a bit less cold and frightening. And perhaps because it sits so sickeningly with Miles, every single damned time that they call him a hero, that Sirius (who saved his life) goes unremembered.

From:

doggedly

There is, vaguely, a sick sense deep in Sirius' chest, when he thinks of that threat ever becoming a reality. Not out of modesty, but because of the exact reasons that Edgeworth thinks. And yet at the same time, he knows that he doesn't actually have to worry, because Edgeworth won't tell. Securing that promise from him had not been easy, because Edgeworth inclines toward honesty--and even more power than his honesty is his want to share in the apparent glory of the deed, to give Sirius credit. He had said as much.

Maybe that was another form of pity. It's absurd, to think that Edgeworth would ever have reason to feel sorry for him. It's probably more absurd to consider that as a real possibility. But, still: the impulse to share Sirius' role had not been one that Edgeworth had given up on so easily.

But so okay: that prickle of unease lasts only for a second, and then Sirius' dark little smile curves a little more firmly on his face.

"Prefect, then," he assumes aloud. He exhales through his nose, lets out the smoke that way. It burns a little, a tiny tingling feeling that he does not react to. "Heroism is a load of dragon shit anyways. Anyway, I wouldn't want to deprive you of the title, not when you've got just a half a week left to enjoy hearing it. Sad, isn't it."

From:

alsohawkeye

Johanna unquestionably did it better. Kate's act - at least as far as the viewers were concerned and they're all that matter - only lasted until Day 3, when she answered questions about whether she was truly 100% incompetent by sneaking into the Cornucopia from above after free-climbing down and back up a treacherously unstable wall of rubble.

But half the fun of Kate Bishop has always been the controversy, the annual argument that she's never put to rest about just how much of what happened was planned, about what sort of Victor she really is. She's never said a straight word about it either way, despite the dozens of interviews (especially last year, her 5th anniversary, how exciting!!). Did she let the first two Tributes she came across live because she was weak, or naive, or sadistically foresaw the gruesome ends they'd meet after she left them? Did she kill the third in a blind panic of self-defense, or accidentally, or did she just get bored with the act? What about all the others after that? No one who kills that clinically, who could survive being teamed up on in a climactic final confrontation like hers could be anything but the consummate Career, the perfect embodiment of coldly calculated murder. But then why did it look so much for that first week like she was trying to avoid killing anyone at all? She's certainly seemed to enjoy the perks of the fame, so maybe that was what it was all along, one way or another?

She's not close enough to Finnick to have told him yet, though rumor has it she has a thing for pretty boys with abs like that. Of course rumor also has it there was more than just mentorship between her and Cassie Lang, her Tribute in the 69th Games, but she sounds so blasé about teenage cannon fodder now who could credit it. She sips her wine and casts a sideways look at Johanna, perfect brows perfectly arched, lips curved into a smirk.

"You came to me." She gives her head a little twitch of a tilt like so there, and lifts her glass again, unfazed by the look. "So do you know anything about them, yet?"

From:

jurisimpudent

"I don't understand them." If there's one thing that Black has been shown, time and again, to appreciate, it's a bit of scorn leveled at worthy targets. So Edgeworth nods down towards the younger students in the courtyard - a bit of synecdoche, to indicate the whole of the student body. "They're out there weeping over their impending graduation. Or over the summer vacation and being away from Hogwarts." He plants his back against the wall and braces himself so that he can lean back on his heels. "I cannot possibly imagine why you'd sooner be in school than out in the world."

Unless, maybe, your family is dreadful. Unless, perhaps, that's what's in your future: going back to them. Edgeworth doesn't know what's coming for him - but it only just occurs to him that Sirius might. That Sirius might have to return to that horrible man, that house that Edgeworth has to assume is simply awful. That might have been a horrible thing to say, mightn't it?

So Edgeworth looks over at Sirius, to check whether he looks okay. And he asks, as dryly as he can, sounding as facetious as possible, "You're not one of the sorts weeping over it only being a week and a half, are you?"

From:

axeyou

If she had sidled up to Kate, it was entirely inadvertent--and Johanna is immediately a little pissed at herself for being so fucking out of it, wandering around like she's some wet-behind-the-ears Tribute, and not a seasoned Victor of the games herself. Dwelling back in the past, thinking of her time in the Arena--that doesn't do any good, and she's not going to think about it.

But she doesn't acknowledge Kate's correction, or give any credence to it. Instead she shrugs, one-shouldered. The cut of this year's dress has left that shoulder bare. There used to be a scar there, before the Capitol smoothed it all over. Johanna had put it back, but they'd just smoothed it over again.

"I don't waste my time getting to know them very well, if that's what you mean." Not a problem that the Careers much have. Is it a perk, to get to live in a crowded Victor's Village? Glory for your District, and a lot of annoying neighbors. "But if you're trying to get early information out of me, I don't come cheap, Katie. And I'm definitely more expensive than free."

From:

alsohawkeye

There isn't a Victor in the room who isn't thinking about their time in the Arena at least a little bit - and if there is it's only because they're too drunk or high or naturally addled to think of anything at all. Kate's been all three in her time but tonight she just sips at her wine, letting nails click against the bowl as it warms.

Red wine's better at room temperature, anyway, it goes down more slowly, coating the inside of her mouth. She wonders if it makes the diamond in her tongue look like a ruby. She'd probably have to hold it in her mouth for that, but that makes her think of a boy with a knife in his throat, blood bubbling up so when he fell back and his mouth fell shut he looked like he was wearing bright red lipstick. They've put her in a more muted tone tonight, something subtle.

"I guess you don't think much of your chances, then," is a dry retort, "You're going to have to work on your salesmanship." Or more accurately, Seven is just going to have to hope Johanna isn't the only Mentor handling PR for the district. It must be easier to be able to write them off that way, to know from the start there's almost no chance of victory and just spend the few weeks avoiding real contact. The Victor's Village in One isn't just crowded with winners but with students, too. Perk isn't the word she'd use. "I'll be right here when you reconsider that approach."

From:

doggedly

"Yeah, Edgeworth." Sirius takes another drag on his cigarette, the very picture of noble carelessness. "I'm the sort of person that weeps. Can't you tell that about me, without asking?"

All careful sarcasm aside, Sirius does not know how he feels. There is something to Hogwarts, something beyond sentimentality. Other people grow up here, learn what it is to be responsible, to have expectations laid on your shoulders. But Sirius has known what he was going on to do, long before he'd learnt to realise the ramifications of that set path. And it's not that he hadn't minded that narrow course--it was more that he knew better than to mind.

But maybe that's going to be different, too. He thinks again of the dark door of Grimmauld Place, its gold carved knocker and ornate doorknob, every piece of it smooth and unmarked and unmarred.

None of it shows in his face. He flicks another bit of ash toward the students that they're disdaining. Even the other seventh-years seem stupid--not in the familiar and superior disregard that Sirius has held for his peers nearly all of his life. It's different, more world-weary.

"Big plans for you after graduation, prefect?"

From:

axeyou

Capitol fashions change on the hour. The fashionable decor for rooms changes just as frequently. The rooms where they have their parties look different every year. One year the room has pillars filled with water and marine life and you have to try and maneuver around them--and the next year the pillars are gone, and all of the Avoxes have been painted gold and they knock out one whole wall so the fresh air from the garden comes in with every gust of wind. That means a Mentor can go back her second year and forget: that last year, she was standing right here, maybe in this exact place, only on a slick tile floor instead of a patch of grass. That second year, it can feel a little like you're being given a second chance.

But your Tributes are two different kids, and they die, too. And it's stupid to have any hope, because no matter what a Mentor says, everything is different in the Arena. Johanna had gone in without help from her Mentor--Girls usually cry, Comandra had said, the day of her Reaping, and then he'd been all about helping Cypress. Johanna's scores in training had been shit--and it was maddening, pretending to deliberate between the sword and the knife, when there were two throwing axes just an arm's length away--but she'd kept playing dumb, she'd let herself be ignored by sponsors.

Because in the end, the only person that wins is you. That's the only tactic Johanna knows, the best advice she can give to anyone, a summary of the cold lesson she had learned all by herself.

What's funny is, Kate probably knows it too. No one good wins the Hunger Games. Johanna still hates the Careers, as a pack, but she hates everyone a little. They might pretend like their training and their viciousness gives them an edge, but their wins just mean they're colored a little darker from the start.

And all of that means that Johanna can just smile at Kate, right in her face. Go ahead and underestimate them, wouldn't you like to know, blah blah blah. Fuck all of that. She doesn't bother with taunts, or rejoinders. She just smiles, like they're just two girls at a party, not talking about the impending deaths of their Tributes.

"Hey, remind me--how long have you been a Mentor for? District 1 is used to more wins than you've had in the last few years, right? That's so disappointing." Such sympathy; she even gives Kate a little pout. "But don't worry. I'll remember. You'll be right here. What are you going to be here for, exactly? To give me advice? Or do I have something better to look forward to?"

From:

jurisimpudent

Big plans for you. That's an uncomfortable bit of phrasing, isn't it? The implication of it is clear, whether or not Sirius had intended it as such: plans for him. That means not his own plans, but rather someone else's...And there might very well be. Tomorrow he has a meeting with representatives from the Ministry, and he doesn't know what they're going to be offering him but it sounds as though it will be some work or something else, and he hopes they'll make him an Auror but he fears they'll just make him a celebrity...

"I was going to go work for the Ministry over the summer." He wriggles his feet around in his shoes - a pair of solid Muggle trainers, incredibly comfortable and very sensible. "An office clerk for the Wizengamot. Fetching coffee and the like." He gives a small shrug. "The implication was that that is now simply unthinkable."

He tips his head over towards Sirius.

"Where are you headed? I never did ask. Ministry as well?"

From:

alsohawkeye

It's stupid to have any hope. Kate knows it. It doesn't matter. Try as she might, Kate Bishop always hopes. She'd never tell Johanna that; she does her best to play it as casually as most of the mentors, as resigned to everything as she knows she probably should be by now. One hasn't had a victory since her, that's ten kids she's known and trained and counseled and watched die. It's gotten easier to avoid actually making friends, since Cassie, but she's constitutionally incapable of not caring, of not trying every god damn thing that might help even the slightest bit.

It's not even just her own Tributes, either. Maybe if she were just your average Mentor, if she were smarter, Kate could at least restrict herself, at least just focus on her district's two and know that was really all she could do. But before she was ever a Victor, Kate was an heiress. Her (scumbag) father is tied closely enough to the Capitol that her family's fortune is immense, for the Districts, enough to quietly make her something of a Sponsor in her own right. She doesn't advertise it, makes sure the money moves through friends and intermediaries or anonymous donations, but what she can do to make the arena a little less horrifying - for anyone in it, for however brief a moment - she does.

It doesn't make her feel better, but what does.

All this to say that when Johanna digs at her, it hurts. It doesn't do a damn thing to her expression, but it hurts, and she looks down at this sharp-faced, sharp-tongued, sharp-elbowed girl and she wonders if they'd been in the arena together if all those edges would've cut her hand when it wrapped around her throat, if her ribs would've been razors at Kate's knuckles when she drove in the blade. She hates when she finds herself imagining exactly how she'd kill someone.

She smiles like she's unflappable, like she cares as little about all of this as Johanna seems to. Two girls at a party. No murderers here. "At least mine have made better ends. When you get tired of watching yours die so badly, you let me know."

From:

axeyou

And Johanna laughs. It isn't nice, but she has never been a nice girl. When she won the Games, she won on her own, of her own volition--but she won because she was nasty, and heartless, and willing to do what she had to do to come out on top. What's one cruel laugh in the face of her fellow Mentor? It doesn't escape her that they're talking about kids--but two killers, two girls, talking about kids that will fight to the death in just a matter of time--they can be all smiles, but there's no dressing it up. Putting ribbons on a corpse doesn't make it any more alive.

"Better ends," she repeats, with a sneer. "Is that really something to brag about? You can pretend like it is, if you have to. I won't tell a soul."

Like Johanna has anyone to tell--except Finnick, who probably already knows. Johanna cocks her right hip and plants a hand on it, a deliberately casual stance.

"And when I do let you know, what are you going to do, exactly? Are you going to show me how to be a better mentor? Give me some tips? Just what," and she leans in a little, drops her tone, to a murmur, "do you have to teach me, Kate?"

The velocity of that mood swing is enough to give anyone whiplash--from mocking to flirting in under twenty seconds. Always keep them guessing. Johanna thinks, for a moment, of the rumors about Kate Bishop. All those whispered little secrets. She doesn't have time for that kind of thing, but she still knows.

From:

alsohawkeye

When death is all you have left, of course how it comes makes a difference. But Kate's not going to explain that, not here, not now, not to Johanna fucking Mason. Staying alive and choosing the manner of your death aren't really the same thing and she's still got that half-feral air that says she isn't ready to think past survival as the sole and ultimate goal. It makes Kate feel old.

So she leans in closer still, far enough into Johanna's space that skin prickles with that sense of imminent contact, palpable anticipation. But not so close that she can't very obviously drag her gaze down Johanna from eyes to breasts and back. She matches Johanna's volume, and lets her voice drift low and rich and full of suggestion. "Teach you?"

Her lips curve, just at one corner, the most minute suggestion of a smirk. One cost/benefit of playing at being made of ice: the slightest hint of reaction is like a full on show from anyone else. Her head cants, almost close enough to bring them cheek to cheek but not quite. To anyone else it will look like they're whispering secrets, probably trading information, plotting an alliance. But Johanna can feel Kate's breath curling warm and soft around her ear, down her neck.

"Where do I even start?"

The angle of head and shoulders naturally becomes a turn, and she slides smoothly past Johanna and back into the crowd.

Edited (totally unnecessary tweaks hurray i'M SORRY) Date: 2014-09-24 03:31 pm (UTC)

From:

doggedly

If the implication was inadvertent, it's only because Sirius has his own future in mind, the preset big plans that have been in place for him since before he was even born. He's not the hero of the wizarding world, Voldemort's executioner--and what ministerial department wouldn't be lucky to have him. No, the finality of Sirius' future is more social.

Should be. He thinks again of that door, and then digs the heel of his hand against his right eye, as if to push it out of his head.

"Don't worry, I'm sure they'll still let you fetch the coffees, if you want to keep up that humble routine." His cigarette is nearly smoked down to nothing, but he takes another drag. "I'll have interests at the Ministry. There's enough to do without complicating it with work."

This is the way that it should be, the way that it was going to go until that stupid fucking party. Sirius doesn't write home with any regularity, nor does he receive correspondence from his parents. But there has been a distinct lack of direct communication, and barely an owl has flown between Grimmauld Place and Hogwarts--or, at least, no owls for Sirius. Regulus dutifully passes along the necessary news. Sirius hates those conversations with his brother most of all, not in the least because they always end with anxious little glances, as if Regulus is trying to work up the courage to say something.

In fact, irritation strikes Sirius at the mere thought. He busies himself with getting out another cigarette, though the first one isn't quite smoked out yet.

"When I'm at the Ministry, I'll make sure to look you up. You can give me one of your coffees."

From:

axeyou

She doesn't shiver at the light touch of Kate's breath. Gooseflesh breaks out on her skin, and the close contact makes everything in her prickle, braced for contact--and in her head, there is still Johanna Mason of two years ago, her face streaked with blood and her fingers tight on the shaft of her axe, where close contact meant only that she's going to kill you. That complicated set of instincts will never die, will always be her first reaction.

But it's two years later, and Johanna can bite back the urge to bury an axe in Kate's head. She can feel, mixed in with the brutality and paranoia, the little thrill of anticipation that comes of being stood so close to Kate, to have her eyes on her just like that, and the murmur of her voice tickling in her ear. It's all caught up in the impulse to hurt Kate before she does the hurting, a tangle of violence and sex. Johanna's fingers tighten on her glass, and her breath catches, just a little--not in any noticeable way; if Kate is made of ice, then she is carved of wood, has taught herself to be immovable. It's the same sort of catch that she feels before she throws an axe, the same dizzying swoop, the anticipation of action.

But Kate turns away before there's any action, and the grip of that feeling releases Johanna all at once. Standing there so suddenly alone, she feels only the tingle of irritation--and that quickly changes to anger, as she watches Kate Bishop saunter away through the crowd. Who the fuck does she think she is, with that smug act? They're the same. All of them here are the same, and there is no one that Johanna needs to teach her anything.

She doesn't give chase. She refuses. She stands planted, her drink still clutched in her hand. She's more likely to snap the slender stem of the glass and drive it into someone's throat, but instead, she calls out:

"Hey. Kate."

It's not a shout, but Kate will be able to hear it, even over the low murmur of the crowd.

From:

alsohawkeye

The threat, the uncertainty, the anticipation: that complicated frisson is exactly what Kate was going for. If Johanna's stock-still beside her that's a tell all its own, or she's at least going to read one into it. If Johanna were unaffected it wouldn't take her so long to form a deliberate reaction; the only reason not to move, not to retort, is if she doesn't trust herself to. Exactly what urge might be moving her Kate doesn't really care. It'd be funnier if Johanna were actually turned on but needling her to violence would be alright, too. The Capitol's trained her well for both.

She doesn't really expect either as she glides away, noting that she sort of misses the click of heels that would accompany her exit if the floor were still tiled. She still doesn't expect either sort of attack as she hears her name, but she sets a thumb on the clasp of her bracelet anyway, in case the blade disguised inside becomes necessary. She takes her time stopping, like she almost doesn't hear (untrue) or doesn't care (half-true). The look she turns over her shoulder is bored, and she parrots back the tone.

"Johanna."

Edited Date: 2014-09-24 05:25 pm (UTC)

From:

jurisimpudent

He guesses that's what's to be expected. Edgeworth knows all about Sirius Black's fine expectations - the weight of responsibility and expectation placed on his lanky shoulders. The way those things have crushed him over the past seventeen years. He knows the hatred Sirius feels for them; he knows about the way that Sirius is happiest when he feels free, and independent. He knows about Sirius' pride, and his prickliness, and all the ways in which he isn't what they'd wanted him to be.

Over the past few months, Edgeworth has waited and hoped for evidence that the Black family collaborated. All of them except Sirius. That's something he'll never tell the boy, but he wished that the manor had been ripped up by the foundations - and not out of spite against them, but purely out of a desire that Sirius not have to face what they want from him.

(Maybe Edgeworth's compassion for Black will fade with the memories he pulled from his head. Hasn't happened yet.)

"You'll get bored." He looks away from Sirius and shoves his hands deeper into his pockets. He tries to make that sound lofty and disinterested. "You should come work with me instead. It'll be a decent amount of adventure, at least."

From:

axeyou

Johanna has metaphorically bitten off heads for tones less bitchy than Kate's. She does not appreciate the mimicry, or the look that Kate gives her--or the fact that it took Kate so long to give her either of those things. Disrespect does not sit well with Johanna and she thinks, again: who the fuck does she think she is.

She is not going to lose. She is not going to let Kate just walk away from her like her parting comments were enough to get her a win, like she can get away with teasing Johanna. She meets Kate's look directly, her arms tense at her sides.

And then she smiles, a quick, spare lift of her lips. This is no interview simper or studied smile worn at parades. It's very small, and a little dark.

"How about tomorrow," she suggests, almost conversational. "I think I can be free to be taught a thing or two. That is, if you actually have something to teach."

From:

alsohawkeye

She's Kate Bishop, that's who.

Johanna's all tension and Kate's as at ease as any of them get at one of these things sober. If she tensed Johanna could probably see it - Kate's dress is essentially backless, the better to show off the nebula-spray of stars when the lights change later in the night. Right now it's all flawless pale skin and sculpted muscle, slack except where she twists to look.

For a moment she just looks at Johanna, and there's a sense that she might refuse. She looks bored and derisive and this time most definitely down her nose. This little bitch thinks because she's been here a year that she knows anything at all. That she knows who Kate is or what she's capable of. The desire to write her off wars with the urge to teach her that lesson, and when the teaching wins it's less about Johanna and more about the Games; she always needs an extra outlet for the weeks she's stuck in that building.

"Six AM, the second basement training area. Don't drink too much tonight. If you vomit on me you'll regret it." She smiles, and it's hard to say whether it's real or fake but it certainly isn't kind. Bye.

From:

doggedly

"Adventure?"

He repeats the word with some incredulity, as he finishes off that first cigarette and flicks its end out the window. It falls into the courtyard below, a burning ember that is swiftly put out by its own descent. Sirius glances back at Edgeworth, with a little smirk.

"Fetching coffees is suddenly adventurous, is it. And so rewarding--when you get that order just right, that success is just-- indescribable. Or that's what I've been told, at least. Merlin, I'm so jealous that you'll get to experience that thrill. You'll have to owl me with all the juicy details."

He lifts his unlit cigarette towards Edgeworth like he's making a toast with it, an elegant little gesture before he slips it into his mouth.

"Anyways, I've been to the Ministry. There's not a lot of adventure there. Even the world as it stands these days can't have changed that much."

During the Voldemort days, it was probably a hive of activity, or else dead silent as everyone tried to get to they were going very quickly. There were days where all the offices must have been full, and memos jamming the lifts along with ministerial employees--and days when the place was dead silent, days when Aurors were preventing access except for the very senior staff. See, the world really has changed. Everyone's gone back to the way things were, except when Sirius looks at Edgeworth, he still sees someone that he knows far too well. He hasn't yet worked out how to feel about that. Whatever this moment is, here--it can't last beyond Hogwarts. He knows that. But he doesn't get up and leave the scene, he stays where he is--and whatever that makes him, he can't quite say for certain.