With thanks to Glassgift and AbbyCoraby123 for your reviews of the last chapter.
Y 184-09-01 T 11:29:35
Day 2
"-And if you're just tuning in- why?" Caesar Flickerman said, his tone as chipper as ever. "I'm only joking, dear viewers- we'll take you through a recap of events since last night. And let me tell you, they're truly something-"
The sunlight streaming through the windows finally woke him up where he lay. He at first wondered why his bed was so uncomfortable this morning, why the wall curved painfully against his back- but as he pushed against the wall and rolled onto his back, it became apparent which was up and which was down. He was lying on the floor, and cool at his side was the curved glass which covered the spiral staircase of his living room. Why was he here, of all places?
And then he noticed the sunlight streaming from the windows, and his pounding head, and he realised he could really care less about why he was there. He waved his hands loosely in the air, signalling the windows to darken their tint. A soft chime sounded, and the windows helpfully flicked up the time and the ambient temperature of the Capitol. Alec gave the windows an equally helpful middle finger, groaned, and turned over.
Directly into the glass fronting for the spiral staircase. Alec whined at the pain in his nose and fought the urge to throw up.
Last night had been, by all accounts, a success. Games night had attracted all manner of famous individuals to his and Ganymede's bar- Elysium had turned over record profits in a night from the sheer wealth of the inhabitants, and more importantly had generated almost as much publicity as the games itself. Counting the night as a success, Alec and Ganymede had shut the bar at 3, brought home several bottles of alcohol and several famous drinkers who didn't want the party to stop, and partied until the sun hit the sky. Alec remembered little, but the live feed of the bloodbath, as was mandated, had played throughout; snapshots of blood and flesh permeated frenzied dancing, flashing lights, the glint of wild, drunken eyes.
In the quiet, trashed living area, a man with short dark hair and a crushed black shirt groaned where he lay on a couch. Alec could recognise that groan without even thinking about it- he rolled back onto his stomach, forced himself into a seated position, and mostly crawled across the floor to the couch the other man was lying on. He sat back heavily against the armrest, absently trailing his fingers against the man's arm.
"Gany." Alec whisper-groaned. "I'm dying of a hangover. Get up and pamper me."
Ganymede Akahiro decided to honour this request by trying to cover up Alec's mouth.
"Stop talking."
Alec brushed away Ganymede's weak fingers. "Come on, I have worse hangovers than you."
"Cease the mouth noises." Or, at least, Alec assumed that was what Ganymede had said, because it was actually said as "see' th' mouuu - nois'ing".
"You know," Alec said, thinking back to a moment only a few weeks ago, "I think I'm one of the few people in the Capitol who could've understood that."
Ganymede, marginally more awake, now had enough motor co-ordination to pinch Alec's lips together. Alec laughed slightly, before grimacing as the action brought home his nausea.
"Seriously, I'm so hungover," Alec groaned.
"Same," came the response. It hadn't come from Ganymede.
The couple's heads snapped up with ridiculous speed, as a figure lying prostrate on the other couch stirred. The figure rubbed his head as he sat up, dragging his hands through his hair. "Damn, how much did I drink last night?"
Ganymede answered without hestitation. "Too much."
The man snorted. "Man, I don't even- you're the Elysium owners, right?"
"-Right." Alec said doubtfully. If this guy could barely remember who they were, then- wait, Alec thought. Who is this guy?
The man sat up, stretching- he seemed barely fazed by the debauchery of the night before, or the fact that he'd woken up in the apartment of strangers.
Or, indeed, Alec mused mutely as the man stood up, the fact that he's barely wearing anything at all. By Ganymede's awkward cough next to him, he had come to the same thought.
"Man," the partially-naked stranger said as he walked through their apartment. "That bloodbath was something, huh? Never thought I'd see the Careers disbanded."
"They- what?" Alec managed, struggling to match the stranger in the unspoken standing up contest. He couldn't understand what was going on. This guy stayed drunk in their apartment all night, ended up crashing on their couch in nothing but some underwear that really left nothing to the imagination, and still remembered what happened in the Games last night? Alec still wasn't sure if his tongue was still in his mouth this morning.
The strange man began making himself coffee. "Yeah, I mean! When Theon stabbed Sheen, and when Ronan and Emma ditched the group! I almost screamed, it was so dramatic! And when Anna- well! I don't need to tell you how incredible that moment was!"
"Oh, you really could," Ganymede groaned into his hands as he sat up. Alec patted Ganymede on the shoulder sympathetically.
The man shook out his hair pensively as he waited for the coffee to percolate. "Yeah, I mean- the whole bit with it being the Capitol was- weird."
"The what?" Alec groaned, looking up at the man.
"The Capitol!" Alec was told. By a voice that belonged neither to him, his boyfriend, or the mystery partially-naked man making coffee in his kitchenette. Alec and Ganymede looked up again, to see a young woman in a dressing gown padding from their bathroom to their kitchenette. Alec was pretty sure she was wearing his dressing gown. "You know? The arena being the whole Capitol in replica? It looked incredible. And when they did a wraparound of the arena layout- wow, am I right?"
"Probably," groaned Ganymede, finally finding enough energy to stand. "I'm sorry, I really am, but-"
"Oh, you guys are awake!" Trilled another woman as she trailed behind the woman in Alec's dressing gown.
Alec gave up trying to stand up and opted instead for slumping down into a seated position on the red-and-black couch. "How many of you are there?" He whimpered.
"Sorry, babe?" The man asked.
Ganymede stumbled over to the coffee pot, and the mystery man poured him a mug. "Who are you guys?" Ganymede said without preamble.
"Oh!" The man said with a tone of surprise; albeit, to Alec's surprise, not affront. "I'm Cicero- Cicero Azoulay. I'm modelling for the Cinna Collection right now." He offered a hand to Ganymede, which went entirely unseen by him in favour of the coffee-filled mug in Cicero's other hand. One of the women giggled.
"He's so hot right now."
"Am I not hot all of the time?" Cicero quipped, sending the girl into uncontrollable giggles. The other woman, the older one wearing Alec's dressing gown, opted to answer next, sipping from her own coffee mug.
"Sabina Hernandez," she introduced herself. "I'm part of the Justice Department."
"What part?" Alec asked with detached curiosity.
"The part that I'm not allowed to tell you which part," she answered cryptically, returning to her coffee. Alec disliked evasive government workers on the best of days, but when he was hungover it was almost unbearable. The younger woman giggled again.
"And I'm Demeter Hansen," she introduced herself, sifting across the alcohol-littered worksurfaces for non-caffeinated drinks. "I'm one of the new stylists!"
"Oh, you poor dear," Cicero said, still apparently unaware he was mostly naked as he sipped his coffee. "Hopefully not District Seven? Those wretches didn't deserve to wear styled clothing if they were just going to rip it up."
"Oh, no, I'm a junior on District Eight," Demeter gushed, apparently unaware she was staring at Cicero, and mostly at his uncovered torso. "Shame what happened to the girl Resta, but it's nice to see Cesal's doing well! Although, I could tell you some things- that boy was a nightmare in prep-"
"-I don't think you'd be allowed to tell them those things, Miss Hansen," Sabina cut in as she sipped her coffee. "It's Games regulations, hon."
"Oh, right! Silly me," Demeter giggled, grabbing up a half-empty soda from the worksurface and experimentally sipping from it. "I always forget those."
"See that you don't," Sabina said. "I won't always be here to keep you on the straight and narrow." She inspected her coffee. "This is good. What Nine plantation is this from?"
Ganymede shrugged helplessly. "I, uh, we didn't check, whatever turned up in the shipment, you know."
Alec struggled upwards, standing for the first time this morning. "Okay, I think I'm missing something here. Why are you all here?"
Cicero frowned, seeming to notice at the same time the question was asked that he wasn't wearing anything but a flimsy pair of underwear. "Because you invited us?" The hungover model proceeded to inspect his own body's state of undress.
"Yeah, no, we get that," Ganymede sighed. "Why are you still here?"
Sabine answered this time. "Good coffee?"
Alec groaned, stumbling over to recieve his own cup of coffee. From his long experience with Ganymede, he could tell his boyfriend was considering how many ways he could kill the unwanted inhabitants of his apartment with only his coffee mug.
Demeter giggled. "Okay, look, I'm gonna go get changed into my after-party clothes. You don't mind if I use your bedroom, right?"
"Well-"
Demeter had already flounced into the bedroom and shut the door behind her. Cicero put down his coffee and went to the bathroom. "I think I left mine in here. I think. I'm not even sure where my party clothes are."
Ganymede and Alec were left with an apparently unrepentant Sabine sipping coffee in their kitchenette. Alec shifted uncomfortably. "Uh, I-"
"You're Alexander Taupe, right?" Sabine said, looking up at him sharply.
"-Yes?" Alec frowned. Something in Sabine's gaze went past the idle chatter of the previous few minutes.
"Hm." She sipped her coffee absently. "If I were you, I wouldn't be angling to keep making successes on your bar- at least, not with your face on the cover."
Alec's stomach fell into a pit, and he blanched. Ganymede flicked his eyes between his boyfriend and the woman from the Justice Department, wearing his clothes and drinking his coffee. "What are you saying?" Ganymede demanded, putting himself semi-unconsciously between the two other people in the room.
Sabine shrugged. "I won't say anything, not my place. But footage travels fast from Josiah Lyman's office, and we've all been put on standby. Just- if I were you, man, I wouldn't try to put yourself on anyone's radar."
Alec couldn't speak. His mouth was too dry. Thankfully, Ganymede spoke for him.
"What part of the Justice Department are you from?" Ganymede asked in a whisper. Sabine shrugged again, sipping at their coffee.
"Not my place to tell you. Senior enough to know these things," she replied. "This really is good coffee, you know. You must get it straight off the train."
Her eyes bored into Alec's. The silence between them stretched forever. And then she turned and walked into the bedroom after Demeter, and the apartment was silent and tense.
Behind them, however, a forgotten figure lying on the ground stirred from his place next to a littered mess of bottles.
"Holy shit," Haymitch Abernathy groaned on the ground. "Where the hell am I?"
Alec collapsed onto a bar stool, cradling his coffee mug in his hands.
Ah, holidays,, with their wonderful locations and their wifi that decides to cut out irrevocably halfway through the trip. Lovely. Did I say lovely? I mean soul crushing.
But in any case. I actually saw a Pacu this holiday, so that felt pretty important comapred to my recent discovery of their terrifying teeth.
And this chapter? Was written on and off in an hour and an half, and I make no excuses for it. It does, yes, contain Zoolander references, because I'm awful. Was this where I imagined I'd take this chapter? No. But I figured a bit of comc relief after horrifying even myself with my imagery last chapter wouldn't go amiss. Hopefully you agree. And while this holds no real point, my image of Cicero is based off of Yassine Rahal, real life male model and terrifyingly good looking. This author's note is just becoming pointless now.
As ever, thank you for reading this far.