XLIII: The Capitol - Rose Point Estate.
Icarus Devereux, 17
Applicant #10
There's nothing in his dreams but darkness.
No good, no bad. No horrors lurking just out of sight. Just blissful, empty black and heavy warmth, the feeling of a pulse underneath his searching fingertips.
It's as close as he's come in a long while to peace, even before everything. That's including the past seven months, nearing eight. He had no peace then, but an awful lot of quiet. Too much of it, really, but he couldn't escape it.
It was quiet now, too, save for a faint rustling. Soran's hand pulls away from beneath his fingers and he still stretches them out anyway, long after it's gone. Icarus rolls over, shifts his weight until his forehead bumps into something vaguely warm - his back, if he had to hazard a guess, but then that disappears too. His head thunks into the mattress with a soft thud.
"What're you doing?" he mumbles.
"Getting up," comes the reply, but it sounds as bleary as his own voice was. "It's been like sixteen hours."
"Fuck," he manages, but it sounds like another word entirely muffled into the mattress. His brain is slowly coming to life with the realization of that, along with everything else, and shit he doesn't want to think about it, he can't think about it. His head isn't thumping anymore, finally. He doesn't want to think about it anymore.
It's there, though, a nagging reminder.
They're still dead.
"You don't have to get up," Soran says quietly, and then his weight disappears altogether. A drawer slides open and then slams shut.
"Why are you getting up?"
"To go do something."
"What?"
"Nothing," Soran says easily. "Fuck, trying to find clothes in here is like looking for a needle in a goddamn haystack. Didn't she say there would be shit around here for us?"
"What are you going to do?" he asks, this time with more intent. He lifts his head up a few inches but it hurts his neck after too long, so he flops back down again. His eyes still haven't properly adjusted, and all he can make out is Soran's shadowy outline ambling around the room. He still doesn't sound the most convincing himself, but now his voice is coming back. He's awake for good.
"Nothing," he repeats. "Just don't worry about it."
Oh, he's worrying. There's purpose in his voice, then, and it says that something's being hidden from him. People don't usually try that with him - he's too fucking insatiably curious not to figure things out, eventually, and everyone knows it. Hiding things from him is just prolonging the inevitable.
And Soran's not like that, really. He's the opposite.
He sits up. "Seriously, what are you doing?"
This time, to boot, he gets fucking ignored. It's not like Soran doesn't hear him, either. He's been hearing every word and either ignoring it or hiding what's happening and Icarus can't decide which is worse. Both are bad, certainly. Soran can't just go on dancing around him. He waits a few more seconds, but Soran evidently finds whatever it is that he's looking for quicker than he has any right to in his state and is out the door before Icarus can even process what just happened.
Oh, no he doesn't.
He launches himself out of bed onto both feet, the first time he's been able to do so without any pain in several agonizingly long days. It's all too easy to catch up with him, not ten paces down the hall. It takes everything in him to ignore the flash of pain that comes over Soran's face when he grabs his arm and pulls him to a halt. If he lingers on it too long his resolve will shatter, and it's already thin as is.
"C'mon," he prompts. "Tell me."
"You can't ever just leave something alone, can you?"
"Have you met me?"
"Have you ever considered that I'm not telling you for a reason?"
"What's the reason, then?"
"Jesus," Soran mutters. "I'm going to talk to Pandora and I don't want you involved. Happy?"
"Not really, no."
Soran sighs. Icarus knows if he lets go of his arm he's going to take off, and he's not sure he has the energy to keep chasing him. It's an exhausting job and he hasn't even been at it that long. He looks frustrated; maybe not at Icarus directly, but he wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. That's how their relationship started after all, one annoyance to another.
He really thought they were past this.
"I'm going to talk to Pandora," he repeats. "Because we're going to figure out who did this."
"So why wouldn't I worry about that?" he asks. "You don't think I want to help?"
"I don't want your help."
"Why not?"
Soran mutters something under his breath and then tugs his arm free from Icarus' grip, making it a few paces away. Oh no, though, he's not just tired, now, he's annoyed. That gives him more than enough energy to follow and grab at him again before he can get anywhere, but Soran pulls away once again. At least it gets him to stop, though it doesn't look like he wants to.
"Whoever did this," Soran starts. "Whoever did this killed seven more people - I know I don't need to remind you of that. And I know your relationship with them may not have been beyond stellar but it doesn't fucking matter because whoever this was killed them anyway. We lived, they retaliated. What do you think's going to happen if we keep pushing?"
"I'm trying not to imagine."
"Exactly! You know something else is going to happen, we all do."
"So what, you're putting yourself in the line of fire again? Your hand is still fucked possibly beyond repair because of the last time you did that, and you're doing it again?"
"It doesn't matter if I do it."
"Like fuck it doesn't matter—"
"It doesn't," he insists. "If it was one of you four, if it was anyone else, it would. But it's me. It doesn't matter if they're looking at me because they can't fucking do anything about it - there's nothing and no one they can take from me that hasn't already been taken."
It's funny, sort of, because he was the one that punched Soran however many days ago. Right now it feels like the other way around, and this time it feels like it actually did something. It feels like he ought to be black and blue, like he's bleeding. He's not, though. Instead there's just no physical evidence to the pain; no one will know he's feeling it.
Except Soran, maybe, who's eyes have shifted in a maybe I shouldn't have said that sort of way even though there's no taking it back now. He looks slightly more defensive, too, posture rigid and held back. Like he's waiting for a blow.
A blow that he knows won't come, too, because Icarus can't hit him. Icarus can't hit him because he'd feel too fucking bad about it.
"Are you fucking serious?" he asks. His voice is back now, after several seconds of resetting action, different than before. This is the voice that belonged to him in the month after Estella, when people would come to check on him. When they eventually stopped.
Indifferent, frigid, guarded.
Hurting too bad on the inside to try for anything else.
"You're not fucking serious," he says. "You can't actually believe that's true."
"It is."
"It isn't!" he snaps. "How has everything leading up to this convinced you that you don't have anything? Is your fucking life not good enough for you? They've already proven that they could take that. And what about me? Do I suddenly not fucking matter in this? Imagine that, huh, they come in here and decide to fucking kill me because they can't get to you. Would that not matter at all?"
Oh, there we go. Now Soran's not trying to run and he's not talking. An ideal combination, in most worlds. Right now it's pretty high up on the list of terrible things that could be happening right now.
That list is pretty long, too. He's had a lot of things to add to it recently.
His eyes are just blank. Like empty, bottomless pits. If he remembered only one thing from that brief stint in training it was the Career level shutdown that's happening in him right now.
"Have you ever considered that this is exactly why you have nothing?" he asks. "This is just what you do, isn't it? Everything around you just gets all sorts of fucked up because that's all you know how to do, because you're an asshole. That's how it's been your whole life, right, so why change now?"
Icarus has never in his life stunned someone so thoroughly into silence - he's choosing to believe that's what's happening right now instead of him watching the last of Soran's care for anything in the world spiral down the drain. If that's the case he has to think it was already happening, and he's just the nail in the figurative coffin. Here's Icarus, putting that six feet under. Fucking good for him, apparently.
"You're an asshole," he says again. "And you know it's not true."
He turns, has his hand back on the door, and then he hears the intake of breath. He almost rips the door open and ducks inside before he can hear anything else.
He doesn't want to hear anything else.
"Except it's true right now, isn't it?" Soran asks. His voice sounds like his eyes look. Faraway. Too far.
"Fuck you," he answers. He can't come up with anything else except for that, and at least this time there's a proper amount of venom in his voice, enough for Soran to know that he means it.
He doesn't get far. There's just enough time for him to open the door and not much else; he doesn't even get a second to step inside.
"Guys," Pandora says. He nearly screams aloud. It's a good thing he doesn't. When he turns to look Soran's already done the same, turning to her at the other end of the hall. It doesn't look as if she heard any of it.
He might just die on the spot if she had.
Her look is appraising, flicking between the two of them. There's something there, a small realization perhaps. Not enough to get the whole picture, and he's definitely not about to tell her. Who knows now though, with Soran apparently willingly talk to her. She might just found out quicker than he would have expected.
The look disappears even quicker, though. The one she has now he's come to associate with some sort of doom and gloom, especially after what she's told them already. It can't get any worse, though. Can it?
Maybe it can.
"I need to talk to you guys," she says. "Please. It's important."
Fuck his life.
It never ends, does it?
Emmi Langlois, 17
Applicant #13
"Can you not just tell us now?" she asks Evander. "I feel like I'm being led on a wild goose chase."
Maybe they are. That would be mildly hilarious, and better than whatever she's picturing.
Not that she really has a picture at all. She's trying to avoid one if she's being honest.
"Pandora's just gonna, you know, group conversation it," he says. "Quicker. Easier. And I don't really know the whole story."
Oh, so there's a story now? That must be great.
Even Ria seems to agree, offering up a small murmur of concern and nothing else. If she's being led on a wild goose chase then Ria is practically sprinting to keep up with the two of them and their longer legs. Ria, who had been with her all day and into the night, all the way into the wee hours of today. She doesn't even know where Tarquin's gone, or if he's trying to sleep somewhere.
Ria's still here, though. It's oddly nice.
She slows up a hair - Evander shoots ahead without noticing after a few seconds, but Ria clearly appreciates it.
"Do you wanna go find him?" she murmurs.
"Crynn's on it!" Evander calls back. How they're essentially now being parented by three people ten or so odd years older than them now is beyond her. How the hell does Crynn know where Tarquin is, and why does he know it better than she does?
It's just weird, is all.
It is, however, a welcome distraction from everything else. It would be even nicer if she could imagine that it was a good thing they were headed to hear instead of something awful, but it has to be. There's no way this sense of urgency is coming with good news - things don't work that way. From what Emmi's learned of people thus far, even, they don't seem too great in the sharing good news department at all.
Evander finally props open a door for the two of them not far from the main staircase, the door to what she's come to known as Pandora's office. She herds Ria inside before she steps in herself. Not a moment later and Tarquin is getting ushered in behind her by a only slightly frantic-looking Crynn. Soran looks up at her, balanced over the back of one of the many chairs strewn around the place, but Icarus stays staring at the table, a very sullen look in his eyes. He's also standing a rough fifteen feet away from everyone else, minimum.
If only she had time to wonder about that.
"Shut the door, please," Pandora asks, and Evander does so with a near-silent click.
"Can I leave?" she asks.
"I'll make it quick. You can go after that, if you want."
Is Emmi not going to want to? God, what hell could possibly be waiting for them now if she might not want to?
Pandora perches at the edge of the table, brushing a few stray hairs from her face. She looks quite frazzled if Emmi says so herself. "I got a call not long ago."
"Okay?" Tarquin asks, saying the word exactly as she feels it. If this is quick she can't imagine what's slow. For people that have a lot of news to share this family certainly seems to do so at the slowest rate possible. At least Soran hasn't joined in on that particular thread just yet.
"It was Crisantha Gardell. The President's wife."
She looks around at everyone, as if waiting for a reaction. As far as Emmi can tell no one gives her one. Ria continues gnawing on the inside of her cheek as she's been doing for the past minute and a half. Soran presses both hands to his temples and rubs a few circles there, letting out a breath between his teeth.
"Anyway," Pandora says slowly. Apparently they're no longer a very expressive bunch. "She told me that the President is doing a press conference shortly. He's making an announcement about... about your parents. Nothing specific, and nothing about you. And from what she told me, and she believes it too, he has no plans to announce anything about you five anytime soon."
"Wait, what?" Tarquin asks. Everything that's come out of his mouth lately has sounded confused. It's valid, really.
"He has his reasons, clearly. He probably doesn't want this getting out."
"And like fuck I care what he wants, right?" Soran asks. He pushes his chair out and stands up.
"Where are you going?" Pandora questions.
"I will walk to wherever the hell he's doing this press conference just to ruin his day if you don't get someone to drive me, and I imagine it'll take a long fucking time in my state. Probably won't feel too great, either."
"And do what?" Evander asks. "I'm not in support of hiding this, either, but what he wants—"
"What he wants won't matter if someone else sees us or hears us," Tarquin interrupts. "I... I'm with him, honestly. It's not even about me, at this point, but he's going to tell everyone that my parents died randomly, that they died for nothing. That's not right."
In her mind she's already halfway there, wherever there even is. It's really not fucking right, their President being a huge fucking liar number one. If they don't do this it feels an awful lot like letting someone get away with something, and she's been through with that for a while now. She's determined not to let anyone else even more than it already has been.
It's in her hands, now.
"We may not even be able to get in the building," Pandora points out. "Not with his security."
"Just threaten to off them, that should work," she says under her breath, but she see Soran's smirk regardless. Apparently they're really doing that now. It might be the only thing that works. People may just start valuing their life over everything else; it's about damn time.
"I think what matters more is what we do once we get inside," Icarus says. "Has anyone put any thought into that at all, or are we just going to continue bullshitting our way through everything we say and do?"
"I mean, I'm down for that," she says, but doesn't miss the darker pitch in his voice, his quick glance up and over at Soran before he goes right back down, this time to the floor, still with that petulant stare.
Oh boy, is she not even going to ask. She values her life, thank you very much.
They really don't have a plan, though. The last time they did it was Ria's doing, and Ria is very much silent now. That's what's to be expected of her when she finds out she might get shoved in front of a camera or a microphone. Emmi wouldn't ask her to do the talking, either. It doesn't become her. It won't make anything better either, that she's certain of.
Maybe there is no good plan for this. Maybe they just have to do it and hope for the best.
"You think the Mervaine's are here yet?" Evander asks. His voice is quieter than before, more thoughtful.
"Probably," Pandora answers. "Why?"
"Well, we know they're on our side," he says. "Back-up?"
And that's their party, really. The eight people in this room and the Mervaine's, who she wouldn't bother trusting as far as she could throw them if Ferrox hadn't quite literally brought Soran back from the dead.
She's never had a good throwing arm, anyway.
Pandora sighs. In that moment she looks nearly as frustrated as Soran did a few minutes ago, and it's a funny sight to behold.
She looks to Crynn, then. "Can you get a car? Quickly? Don't bother with a driver, just keep it on the down-low. I'll see if I can get a hold of them."
Crynn nods and slips out of the door, silent as a shadow. The way they'll probably all have to do things if they have any hope of this succeeding, of doing something worthwhile. It might be hard, for most of them. She can't remember the last time she did something quickly, and it certainly wasn't something this important. No, this could make or break them.
It might seem scarier if she hadn't already nearly died a few times over. Her stomach, though, is still scarred. Still aches slightly when she least expects it.
This, in comparison? This is fucking child's play, and she can only hope that the whole world is about to see it.
Tarquin Vierra, 16
Applicant #4
Someone, somehow, figures out where they need to be.
The speed at which Crynn is driving though suggests they ought to have been there a few minutes ago.
Better late than never, he guesses.
The streets in the heart of the city are a maze - even he rarely came down here, especially not by himself. It was always with his parents, some of his friends. Not that it was dangerous, really. Not more dangerous than living in general.
It was just... imposing, is all. Like something that would swallow you whole and refuse to spit you back out.
Oddly enough, now, it didn't seem that scary. Maybe because he knew what scary actually looked like, now.
"You're going left," Evander says, and in the briefest break of traffic Tarquin had ever seen in his life Crynn pulled the car down the closest left turn. He'd have been clutching at the seat if he had the room to, but he had the feeling seven people weren't meant to be crammed in a car this size.
It's a good thing Pandora didn't shove herself in here, too. No, she's on Operation Mervaine, or whatever the hell they're calling it. If it's even an operation at all.
"This isn't usually where they do them," Evander mutters, almost as if he meant to keep that to himself. Emmi whirls on him with a raised eyebrow.
"So he's just being more of a jackass than usual? Hiding?"
"Seems that way."
Soran and Icarus mutter near-identical things under their breath which would be funny, really, if they were interacting at all. They're not even sitting next to each other.
Ria glances up as they pull to a stop next to a non-descript building only a few stories tall, gray-brown in the weak sun. It doesn't look like anything at all. There's more cars parked at the side of the road than he would hazard there normally are, but that doesn't have to mean anything. That, or it means there's a room full of reporters and important people tucked away inside.
"Can I just stay in the car?" she asks. Tarquin reaches across her to pop the back door open; she's so thoroughly squashed against it that he's not even sure she could get an arm up to do it herself.
"If you want," he offers immediately, starting to crawl his way out of the car without squashing her for good. This isn't Ria's thing, he knows. She's certainly not going to be the one to get in front of a camera, at least not willingly. He can't say he blames her.
"Not happening," Evander interrupts. Tarquin finishes clambering over her and out of the car just in time for Evander to herd her out anyway. "I'm not leaving any one of you where I can't see you."
Ria sighs, full of resignation, and pulls herself out of the car after him. Her movement doesn't have near enough urgency to go along with the situation, but it's like he said - this isn't her thing. She wants to be here even less than the rest of them do, guaranteed.
"It's okay," he murmurs. "Just keep your head down."
They should all be taking that advice, really, but she's the one that needs it.
Evander really is trying to herd them all like sheep, a job he feels would normally be Pandora's job if she were here to do it. He doesn't look nearly as comfortable as she would, and he barely knows her. Up against the side of the building they go, even though there's no one around this way. There's a larger congregation of cars up ahead, and a few people milling about on the sidewalks, looking the other way.
Someone, normally, would be making Evander's job harder than it has to be, but even Soran appears to be staying in line. Tarquin doesn't want to imagine what would happen if he didn't.
"Yeah, yeah, go," Evander says, and Crynn takes off. Not in the urgent sense, but it looks like he knows what he's doing. He disappears into the alley, holding onto one of those tablets that everyone in the vicinity seems to have. Tarquin can't tell from this distance what exactly it is that he's looking at.
"Has it started?" Emmi asks.
"Looks like it."
"Then what are we standing here for?"
"And does she have them, or not?" Soran asks. "Christ, if they can't get here we'll do something else."
"You want a speech, I can totally give a speech—"
Emmi cuts Icarus off with one hell of an exasperated look. "If someone wants to hear you talk about yourself for a few minutes, we'll let you know."
He almost laughs, almost, if only because of the look on Icarus' face. Even Ria bites down on her lip to keep something from coming out.
"Alright, just go," Evander instructs. "Go after Crynn, wait for him to okay anything you're doing. I'm going to call her."
Maybe the biggest surprise of all is that Ria is the first to shuffle her way down the alleyway in the direction Crynn went, apparently more eager than even he believed to get out of the street before someone saw them. It's strange how an alley even feels like relative safety now, when almost noting else does.
It doesn't take long to find him, either, up a set of three uneven stairs and holding open a rather inconspicuous back door, looking this way and that. If he wasn't standing in the way someone would have just barged in by now, he's sure. Crynn though takes his time to look around before he gestures for them to come up as well. Tarquin ducks under his arm, into the faintly lit back hallway. The light overhead is flickering, faintly, but not as if it's about to go out.
Crynn looks down at the tablet again and then points off down the hall, gesturing until someone gets the hint. It's not him, though. Emmi shoves past him and heads off down the hallway. You know he learned sign language once too, like five sentences worth for a student-written play. He probably should have done more than that.
If he doesn't hurry up they're going to leave him in the dust, so he hurries after all four of them. Crynn stays at the door for a moment longer but there's no sign of Evander, and eventually he follows too.
He can hear people through the walls, around corners that he doesn't know about. People who know about them, no doubt, and people who don't. They're all in for the rudest of awakenings if they can pull this off; he's not even really sure yet what this is.
"So, what happens if we get stopped?" he asks. Only Ria turns back to look at him, no surprise there. She looks just as confused about the prospect.
"As long as one of us gets through does it really matter?" Icarus asks.
Crynn nudges him in the arm, so he misses the next too-quick burst of conversation that happens in front of him. He looks down at the tablet - there's a little layout of what looks like a building, and he blinks a few times. Crynn pulls up something else, too, a few lines of text typed out on an otherwise blank page.
It takes him a few minutes to realize they're directions - haphazard ones, but directions nonetheless.
"Oh," he says slowly, after a moment. "Guys, hard left."
Miraculously, someone listens. He's sure not all of them, but the herd follows whoever turns first and then him and Crynn bringing up the rear. By these words they're closer than even he would have expected, the voices growing progressively louder. It won't be long, now. Soon it'll be just them and the prospect of the stage, the interruption. The world knowing everything, or almost everything.
Whatever they can manage to get out before they're stopped, really.
He keeps calling out directions, less time in between them with every once he announces. They finally hit a door just ahead - there are too many lights spilling through the cracks for it to be anywhere other than their final destination, just before the real deal. And one by one they trickle to a halt, all realizing the same thing.
They could go another way, but this one's the quickest.
"So who's going?" Soran asks.
"Well, not us three," Emmi hisses, gesturing back to him and Ria as well as herself. "If you're going for inconspicuous—"
"Got it, Jesus." Soran reaches for the door, and two seconds later Icarus swats him out of the way, with clear intent to do it himself. There's something exchanged too quickly for him to even process. It makes sense, really. Soran shouldn't be doing it, even though he's not so fragile anymore.
It doesn't really matter, though. They're in the process of not-exactly shoving each other to get to the door when it opens anyway, from the other side.
Both of them go still. Emmi plasters a massively fake smile at her face, turning to the two security guards standing at the threshold. Ria looks at the ceiling. He can't tell what Crynn's doing because he's too terrified to look away, lest something happen while he does.
There's two, a man and a woman. The man looks at them with a raised eyebrow, confusing spilling over into his eyes. The woman, though, is blank-faced, something deeper hidden there.
That may just be understanding.
Which means she knows. About them in general, and the need to keep them away, he has no doubt.
Well, that's not very good.
There's a very ridiculously loud burst of commotion. He doesn't stick around to see who's causing it.
It's amazing how much can happen in such a few seconds. He spins on his heel and Crynn side-steps out of the way, already thinking the same thing. Tarquin's back down the hall and turning down the opposite way, the back-up plan, before anyone even sees him do it. No one's following him, either. If he makes another two rights then he should be in about the same area. Maybe he'll be able to sneak in alone and get there.
It's not what he wanted to do, mind you. Before it came so naturally, and now the thought of taking even one step out into the public eye makes him want to throw up.
If only anyone else was going to be able to get there.
There is indeed another door, and just as much light. It means he may still have as little time as they did before, so he doesn't hesitate. The door caves under his hand - the few people that haven't turned to the commotion at the other one lock eyes on him instantly, but no one comes running for him. It's just a little room, attached to something else. That's where all the lights are coming from, the loudest of the voices, the barely-there glint of a few camera lenses, all pointed forward.
And that's where he needs to do.
His stomach is turning. He nearly gets sick halfway across the room, moving too fast to let anything settle. Just a few more steps and he's there. That's it.
He could reach forward, now, push his way through the door. He'd be there.
Someone grabs him so tightly just before he does that it hurts, a hand locked around his elbow. It feels as if it could explode under the pressure. He has no idea who it is and can hardly see him with how close he is, just the uniform of another security guard over top of a figure that is far too tall and broad for him to get anywhere far.
He gets dragged two feet away from the door, and then his arm gets wrenched back so hard he swears it almost pops free from his shoulder, clamping down on the yell that rises from his throat. He definitely can't see now, either. He's facing the wrong way.
The hand releases him too abruptly for him to do anything proper about it, and he goes stumbling gracelessly into the door. His skin feels raw where the hand was.
He has a hand on the door, now, turns and opens it. There's even more commotion, now. He sees a flash of Evander, and Pandora too, and there's the back-up they so desperately needed in the form of Ferrox and Cambria virtually manhandling the guy who had him back across the room.
He opens the door and steps out. It slams behind him before he can catch it. He's still hidden behind the few feet of wall that's left before the open stage, but the slam echoes back and forth across the room several times.
No one can see him, yet. Just everyone in the room behind him and the President looking at him now.
And oh, what a look it is.
Tarquin isn't sure there's any single one emotion there; no, there's too many to pick one. Confusion that bleeds too rapidly into barely concealed nerves too obvious for everyone watching not to notice. And then, a second later, something worse. Tarquin can see pleading clear as day in his eyes, can hear it too, everything he can't say now.
Please don't do this. Please.
He's never liked liars, is the thing. And there's a difference between playing a role, being someone else for a few days, and being something awful permanently.
He'd like to think he's the former. He still hopes he is.
The silence has gone on too long, the staring. A steady murmur is starting up in the sea of reporters and camera-man, wondering what he's looking at. Wondering what they can't see.
If only they knew.
It was like what Myra always called him, though. Shakespeare - like it was a joke, like it wasn't necessarily true.
It is, is the thing. And it's just like putting the mask back on.
That pleading is still there when Tarquin feels the smile on his face, just the littlest of things, and he watches it disappear. Begging, a desperate plea, flipping the switch to horror. Maybe that's just what happens, when someone who's already gotten rid of thirteen others is smiling in your face.
Or maybe he's realized that he's done for.
Not quite number fourteen, really... but it almost feels like he is.
Ferrox Mervaine, 48
Former Head Gamemaker
To put it politely, all hell breaks loose.
It's a very obnoxious sort of hell, too. Everyone's being way too whacky with the shouting, if you ask him. At least one of those kids at the other door has caught an elbow somewhere they didn't deserve one.
And the guy he's holding onto is still fighting him, for crying out loud.
"Alright, dude, chill pill," he insists, and then lets go of him. He goes stumbling away only to turn back, red in the face like a ripe tomato, looking like he's about to... what, hurt him?
Good fucking luck with that.
"Can anyone even hear what he's saying?" Cambria interrupts, shoving her way between them. Maybe Sir Angry will feel less angry if it's a lady he's hitting; it certainly looks that way, because he comes grinding to a halt. His head still looks like it's about to split into ten different pieces in a very spectacular explosion.
"Might wanna look for a new job, pal," he says. "Does it matter what he's saying? The cameras got 'em."
They definitely have him, if the flashing bulbs making an impact all the way over here are any indication. That combined with the live television... someone's going to be doing some damage control later. Or maybe they should just start right now.
Crisantha is nowhere in sight, which is sort of funny. He only met her a handful of times, Dominika's niece, all the way back in her early teen years. The whole Presidential loyalty spiel must just be a part of the bloodline. Or at least it was, until she snitched to Pandora.
It's even funnier, at that.
"You might want to watch the stage," he calls to Evander, who's in-between people that he continues to pluck out of the angry, writhing pile at the door. "I would, but he might hit me."
Scratch that, Tate will certainly hit him. He's only met him once.
It didn't go well, is all he's saying.
"Oh, he's pissed," Cambria observes. He can't really see out the door from this angle, but he can imagine it. Hopefully the image is at least half of reality - it's amusing either way, growing that way the longer he thinks about it. "I think he is talking, actually."
All the kudos in the world to the kid for whatever he's monologue about now. If that weird, off-hand loyalty was in the Gardell line, then maybe there was something to be said about having green hair and giving great speeches.
Not that he had his, anymore, but it still counted. And boy could Mercia go off on tangents if he told her he was listening.
It had to be a thing.
Better yet, people actually seemed to listen when he talked, more-so than they did before. He always had that part of him but it was stronger, now, a swaying power that drew people over even when they didn't have a clue in hell to what he was talking about. This time Evander goes for the door just in time for Tate to step through it, dragging Tarquin along with him.
Not quick enough, though. There's a fucking uproar going around the press-room. Someone's shouting loud enough to wake the dead, him included.
Tate had better be grateful that someone took these's kids parents out; if he saw someone dragging one of his kids around like that, let alone the President, they'd have been dead a few times over by now. Hell hath no fury, and all that. Tate would count himself lucky that he was still standing.
He lets go, at least. Tarquin goes stumbling away, past the both of them, and finally Pandora catches his arm. At least that grip is a gentle one.
It doesn't seem to matter, though. Dare he say it - Tarquin looks a smidgen fucking satisfied. It's the only other mood he's seen him in other than downright miserable.
A massive improvement.
"What's up, Pres?" he asks. Tate only seems to notice them both standing there at his words, because his eyes go even wider than they already were. Anymore and they'll fall right out of his big head. Ferrox has never been an overly impressive specimen himself but Tate seems even larger now, somehow. Maybe it's all that anger going around the room.
If it's not that, he's leaning more heavily to the opinion that an actual tree is leading the country.
"Do you have any idea what you just did?" he asks. His voice is even angrier than his demeanor - how that's possibly is beyond him.
"Hey, I'm just here," he insists. "Why do I always get blamed for everything?"
"You know why," Cambria mutters. Realistically it should be her getting the blame for any and all randomly awful things going on, but no one ever thinks that way.
He's used to the fallout, by now. He embraces it.
"I could have you all killed," he emphasizes. It's not just the two of them he's referring to anymore, and even the security guards seem to shy away at his words, drawing all the attention to the wrongful intruders. "All of you, do you understand me? How does the firing squad sound to you?"
"How does me adding a second President to my list sound to you?" Cambria says, and oh, that's her scary voice. That one scares even him.
It scares Tate too, evidently. He had looked about ready to advance on them, but he goes ram-rod straight at that. One of the security guards turn on her, and then two more.
"Try it," he offers. One of them swallows, and doesn't move.
No one does. Finally.
"I think we'll just... be going now," Pandora interjects. She's still got a hold on Tarquin, and the both of them have been steadily inching away from the conversation as it progresses. One of those kids, he's certain, is bleeding, but it doesn't look like anything serious. Too many stray elbows and fists, is all.
It's just making the progress go backwards, and it was already tumbling down the hill as is.
And Tate, much to his surprise, stays all grand and statuesque, retreating to his full height. He expects Pandora to shrink to the size of an ant when he turns his gaze on her - she's not far from that size as is. It's bigger than her, though. It's not really about her at all. When it comes to the five of them he finds she hasn't faltered at all, and that's something to really admire.
It's even more to consider, when he remembers the bullet her father got in the head for trying to do anything at all.
They file out in their little pack, the kids and the Quinn's, before the door slams shut behind them. A few of the security guards seem ready to move but get no orders to do so, and so it stays that way.
They walk. Not untouched, no, but they walk free.
For now, anyway. That's all he can see from Tate's end.
For now.
The subtitle for this chapter was, "I'm About To End This Man's Whole Career" and if this god forsaken website would let me use images a la ao3 it would've been sitting right here for everyone to see. Alas though, it cannot, and that fact has made me very sad.
And yes, I will continue to name chapters in which Tarquin Does That using Shakespeare quotes. No I do not take constructive criticism.
Until next time.