The cameras weren't lying about the Capitol's grandeur. The spires of the shining city are gleaming white marble. Everywhere you look is polished white, which makes the people look even more striking, which Dean is sure was their goal. They stroll around with their bright colors, so different from the dull ones in the districts. Here people look like glittering insects. Fat, glittering insects.
In the districts people could blend into the ground or the forest what with how stick-thin and dirty they all are. Even the mayors, even the Peacekeepers.
Dean's lip curls. There are no Peacekeepers here. No Peacekeepers to whip people caught stealing food they need to survive. No Peacekeepers to trade people for goods they so desperately need. No Peacekeepers to catch an innocent Victor while she's showing her sons the hydroelectric dam—
Dean turns away from the milling people quickly. Jo doesn't, though, and just waves at them with a ginormous but fake smile on her face. Thankfully none of the insects can tell that the districts aren't as fond of the Games as them, that it's not so much an honor to participate as it is a punishment. "Why are you waving at them?"
"One of them might be rich," Jo shrugs. "We need to suck up to them, don't we?"
Dean's more likely to punch someone, and Jo knows it, so she just sighs with resignation and turns away from the window. Her small hand lands on Dean's bicep and he flinches.
"I'm going to protect you," Jo says fiercely. "I know you think you're going to protect me. But I'm going to protect you too. You're going to come back to Sam. I swear it."
Dean stares into his friend's eyes. She's a good actress. She might be acting.
God, not even ten minutes in the Capitol and Dean's already doubting his best friend's intentions. All the more reason to hate these pudgy, overdressed scumbags with painted faces. Insects.
Everything is becoming more complicated by the second.
He tugs on the chain around his neck.
"I'm not…" Jo pushes up Dean's left sleeve just enough to see the sausage-shaped bruises on his wrist. His hand twitches in hers but he doesn't pull away, which is a big improvement since the first time Jo had found out about John's training.
You always make it out to be a bigger deal than it is, Dean thinks. He can't say it out loud. It's not… it's just the way things are.
"If you think… I'm not going to let Sam be alone with John," Jo finally blurts out. "I know you protect him. I can't… I can't break up a family."
"And if you die what do you think will happen to Ellen?" Dean whispers. He wants to sound like he's arguing, but the truth is that he's going to get back to Sam.
With a jerk, he pulls his sleeve down and wrenches his hands out of Jo's. "Our plan will work," he says after a moment, pulling her into a hug that feels like his last. Jo wraps her arms around his waist and sighs.
"I hope so," she finally mutters. "God, I hope so."
"Well, you've come up with genius ideas before, haven't you?" Dean asks, teasing a little bit. He can't stand to leave things with Jo tense, not when she's the only person he has here. Even under normal circumstances, he can't stand to leave her mad at him—taking time to make up is a luxury only Capitol insects and Victors are able to afford. A luxury Victor's children used to be able to afford. He'd never felt like a Victor's child, though, not really, and so he never wasted his time being mad at people like Sam.
The train eases to a stop and Peacekeepers flank Dean and Jo as they exit the train. There are about ten people waiting for them just at the entrance of a building. For a moment Dean thinks that they can't actually be real people, just looking at how ridiculous they look. Even though government officials wear odd professional clothes, they're nothing compared to the insects.
Dean can't, for example, imagine Castiel's body dyed green like the woman in front of him with a wig of neon blue corkscrew curls and lips a bright shade of orange. He can't imagine any of the escorts like that; their outfits are all so similar they're impossible to differentiate from. Either that or they're the same outfits every day, which Dean thinks might be a little too crazy, even for the Capitol.
"Tributes!" a man with long fake eyelashes with stones glued onto the end beams at them. "Dean Winchester, it's an honor. And Joanna Harvelle, your father is a legend. His Games were, in fact, my favorite, even if they were a little before my time." He smiles, revealing white teeth. One of them has a smudge of his purple lipstick on them.
Dean glances at Jo. She looks a bit sick, but whether it be from the man's garish outfit or comments he's not sure.
"Well, follow us," another woman says with her weird Capitol accent that always rises up at the end like she's asking a question. "We need to get you all ready for your stylists!"
The glances Dean and Jo exchange are more panicked than excited, but either their prep teams don't notice or they notice but don't care.
"Dean, you're in here!" a woman with golden tattoos all over her face squeaks, opening up the door to what looks like a torture room. "Not that you'll have much to improve upon." The appraising look she gives Dean has him both uncomfortable and proud. Obviously he's still attractive, even here in the Capitol, but does he really want someone probably twice his age thinking he's attractive?
He settles by grimacing at her and walking through the door. Who knows what his stylist looks like? Most of the ones they interview on TV are dyed and surgically altered to the point of being monstrous. If that's their sense of style… Dean shudders to think of what he'll look like once he's finished.
It takes almost three hours until Dean's prep team deems him suitable to be presented to his stylist. Those three hours were, to put it lightly, torture. They'd cut Dean's hair, shaved his face roughly, and pulled hair out of places he hadn't even known it was growing in (seriously, though, who cares if he's got hair in his nose?). The one things they hadn't touched were the bruises on his wrists and his amulet, but Dean's face still gets hotter every time he feels someone's eyes on the imprints. And he'd thrown a right bitch fit in order to keep that amulet on, but he's going to keep the amulet on.
Dean touches his tender nose gingerly. "There, now you look like a human being!" the one with purple lipstick says brightly. He slaps Dean's hand away. "Let's call Charlie!"
"Charlie!" the rest of the prep team starts to yell, darting out of the room, and Dean shifts nervously on the table he's sitting on. He doesn't like being naked, especially when someone that's a complete stranger is about to come examine him like he's meat getting ready to be served.
Yep, going along with the Capitol's charade is going to be a lot harder than he'd anticipated.
No matter. Dean's going to get back to Sam, no matter what it takes.
The door creaks open and a redheaded girl with bangs peeks her head inside. "Knock knock."
Dean doesn't say anything. This isn't exactly what he'd pictured. This person that he assumes to be 'Charlie' is, first of all, a girl. Second, her hair is obviously real and not style. Her face is makeup free and clothes not garish like the rest of the insect's.
Somehow she's more beautiful than anyone else in the Capitol, except maybe Jo. They're equal, really, because they're normal.
"Hi, Dean," Charlie continues. "I'm your stylist, Charlie." She has a faint lisp in her voice. It's so small it wouldn't be noticeable if not for the way it impedes the Capitol's accent. She doesn't have one.
"Hello," Dean grunts. He can't afford to piss off his stylist; the Games are hardly a beauty pageant, but more attractive victors always seem to get more sponsors. Dean can't afford to be a walking fashion catastrophe, not when getting back to Sam is on the line.
"Hmm…" Charlie paces around his body, her eyes raking up and down. Dean has to resist the urge to cover himself with his hand. "I have to ask… are those bruises or makeup?"
Dean's head snaps up. Why would someone bother to create bruises with makeup? That's ridiculous! Bruises aren't attractive; all they do is attract weird stares and sympathetic glances. It makes his skin crawl. It's why he wears long sleeves whenever he's fought with John.
"All right," Charlie says, raising her arms. "We'll have to cover those up, I suppose. We can't have you looking weak."
"Are you new?" Dean asks desperately. He wants so badly to hide his wrists, but with what? The extra movement will just draw attention to them, anyways.
Charlie nods, smiling gently. "It's my first year with the Games. I wanted to be a Gamekeeper, but they wanted me here."
All of Dean's walls come flying up. Charlie wanted to be a Gamekeeper, which means she wanted to brainstorm different ways to brutally murder children. She's the same as the rest of the insects. Her outsides just don't match her insides yet.
"Why don't you put on your robe and we can have a chat?" she invites, not noticing the abrupt change in Dean's posture. He accepts the opportunity to be covered gratefully and pulls it on before following Charlie through a door she pulls open. It looks to be a sitting room they find themselves in.
Charlie settles down onto one of the two red couches in the room and stares out the wall-length window for a moment that displays another beautiful view of the Capitol. All the luxury in the world, condensed into one measly city.
As soon as Dean sits across from her, she presses a button and the table separating them splits apart. A small platform rises up in the middle, displaying another elaborate meal that will taste like dirt in Dean's mouth when he thinks of Sam and the districts. As much as the rolls shaped like flowers are pretty, and the chicken cooked into a creamy sauce smells fantastic, Dean can't help but think of what Sam would say if he saw the food. He'd love it, wouldn't he?
For the first time Dean doesn't understand John's decision not to mentor any tributes. Sam and Dean would have been able to visit the Capitol. They would have been able to eat this fancy food together, laugh at these weird people together, and marvel at the view together.
Instead, Sam's stuck eating grainy food in a house that reeks of their mother's ghost, and Dean's alone in a world of insects he can't step on.
"How despicable we must seem to you," Charlie says after a moment. She'd obviously been watching Dean's face as it contorted, looking around at all the elegance people only get to experience for a few days a year.
He'd bet that these rooms go unused except for just before the Games, but that doesn't matter. What does matter is how Dean needs to control his expressions. If the Capitol finds out about his revulsion for them, there's no way he'll get sponsors.
Even if he does find them despicable.
"No matter for that now," Charlie says breezily.
Now.
"My partner, Kara, is the stylist for your friend Joanna. At the moment we're deciding what complementary costumes we wish to create."
In the opening ceremonies, tributes are supposed to wear outfits that represent their districts, ie agriculture for District 11 or fishing for District 4. District 5's principal industry is power and electricity that mostly comes from a hydroelectric dam. More often than not District 5 tributes are dressed in a scanty little water-like outfit or a worker outfit. It's practically sickening, and always predictable.
On the bright side, at least Dean's not District 12. Not even he and Jo could pull off those miner's outfits.
"So I'll be in a worker's outfit?" Dean asks. He hopes it's not too scanty. He would probably die of embarrassment if Sam ever saw him in something like that.
Not that he'll live long enough for Sam to ever tease him if he does wear an indecent outfit, or even go butt-naked. It's Dean's last hurrah, so to speak, but he refuses to go out without some semblance of pride.
"No," Charlie says after a pause. "That's quite overdone, isn't it?"
Dean's going naked for sure. If this was any other situation, he might make a joke about how his jewels might encourage sponsors to support him, but he can't stomach the thought of people he doesn't know actually seeing his bare… well, everything.
"We're not going to focus on the work," Charlie continues. "We're going to focus on the water. And what it does."
God, Dean groans internally, we're going to be dressed in see-through ponchos and nothing else.
"You know what we use the water for?" Charlie grins, tilting her head. "Power. You're not afraid of a little electricity, are you, Dean?"
She sees his expression and grins.
Just under five hours later, Dean is dressed in either the most sensational or deadliest outfit the opening ceremonies has ever seen. Or maybe they have. Dean's just sure that he's never seen an outfit like this in all the Games he's ever seen.
He's dressed in a black unitard that's almost as bad as being buck-naked. Almost. He was allowed undergarments that won't crease under the fabric but will prevent him from being completely exposed. Unfortunately, that meant he wasn't able to wear the amulet. Charlie isn't as easily bendable as Dean's prep team and so Bobby promised to hold onto the necklace and slipped it into his pocket. Dean still isn't sure if he should be worried about the old Victor's wording.
Shiny black boots come up to Dean's knees and a headpiece complete the outfit. He looks like a shadow, or a black deer with odd antlers, and God, this is almost worse than being naked. What will John and Sam think when they see him wearing this on the television screen?
That's not the interesting part of the costume, though. The headpiece Charlie had put on Dean's head she assures him is completely safe, but he's not so sure. Just before they enter the streets, Charlie intends to turn on the headpiece, which is actually a conductor for electricity. Sparks will fall from Dean's head no matter what movement he makes. The same goes for the boots he's wearing; with every movement a spark will erupt from the heels.
He's going to be a walking ball of danger. All he hopes is that he and Jo don't burn each other.
"You are going to be unforgettable," Charlie says dreamily. "Dean Winchester, the boy who would burn you if touched. You'll look like an angel."
The thought crosses Dean's mind that Charlie's relatively normal air masks a complete madwoman. It's certainly an unorthodox approach in the Capitol. She could win the Games with that attitude.
Jo enters the room wearing the same outfit, much to Dean's relief. He doesn't know what he would do if he was standing next to a naked-but-for-a-poncho Jo. The contrast would be horrific, even to the district viewers.
The prep teams whisk the tributes down to the bottom level of the Remake Center, where their chariot pulled by four completely white horses awaits. The animals don't skitter when the chatty prep team floods into the room with them. It's impressive; Dean's seen tame animals more skittish than these horses.
"So what do you think?" Jo asks, leaning into Dean's shoulder to mutter without being overhead. She keeps a fake smile on her face as people congratulate them.
"I'll rip yours off if you do mine," Dean replies. "If it doesn't go as planned."
"Kara said she's tried it before," Jo says, but her tone is obviously uncertain. "What do you think Bobby will think?"
The smile on Dean's face wavers. "What does it matter?" He's still bitter that their escort is an old drunk hermit, but he supposes that was set up by the Capitol as well. He and Jo are just not supposed to survive these Games.
The opening music of the ceremonies begins and Jo jumps. The massive sliding doors Dean had been trying to ignore slide open, revealing crowd-lined streets of glittering insects.
District 1's chariot goes first, obviously. Their white horses have been spray-painted gold and draped with glittering tunics that make them blend right in with the Capitol. Out of all the districts, District 1 is the closest one to the Capitol. They're a fan favorite, which is obvious by the deafening cheer that greets this year's tributes.
All too soon, the next three chariots roll out of the glorified stable. Exchanging glances filled with trepidation, Dean and Jo reach up simultaneously and flip the switch on their headpieces. Immediately the sound of crackling electricity fills Dean's ears. He doesn't know what he looks like, but he can see Jo, and the effect is stunning. The two-pronged headpiece spits sparks (Charlie had sworn they were synthetic and wouldn't burn if they landed on Dean).
Dean tears his eyes away from Jo and looks to the crowd, where a hush has fallen over the crowds. He's not sure if it's a good thing, but his adrenaline is rushing too hard, heart beating too fast and blood rushing in his ears, that he simply doesn't care.
Jo's fingers wrap around his and she lifts their joined hands into the air, and as if they are conductors and the crowd is their orchestra, the cheers' volume swells.