killing with your hands tied {avriel/laffy}

The party is much like last year's. Highlights from Nixie's games play on the big screen and Capitolites crowd the VIP area and the stage, all of them trying to get a look at the newest victor.

Avriel isn't the centre of attention this time but he's near enough to it that he can't move five feet without someone new approaching him. He's got the tools now at least to deal with that. Strangers greet him like he's an old friend and Avriel stares through them, thoughts far away as he disassembles his father's watch in his head and then slides it all back together.

He slips one last cog into place mentally, gets it all ticking and the back secured when he realizes that the man that's been talking at him the last five minutes is staring at him expectantly. Avriel stares back at him for a moment too long to the point of awkwardness and then his attention is caught by his stylist, raising a drink to him roughly ten yards away.

"Excuse me," he says and slips through an opening in the group surrounding him to cross the floor and fall in, safe beside Laffy. Avriel has been holding the same drink for the last half hour, untouched. Since his night out with Lysander he hasn't tried drinking again.

"Did I fuck my hair up or something, Laff?" he asks, because Avriel can't see why else Laffy would seek him out, "Thought you had the night off."

Laffy is an odd constant of Avriel's new life. He's not necessarily one that Av would have ever wanted but now that he's around, he's glad for it. Where Gloria treats him as a glorified show pony, Laffy's always given at least a little bit of a fuck about him.

Which in turn has made Avriel care for him. Eccentric as any other Capitolite when it comes to fashion, Laf's always struck Avriel as someone who's well-rooted. Definitely not as bubbly as the rest of the stylist team, it'd be optimistic to call Laf a realist, but there's something about his tone tonight that makes Avriel listen for hidden meaning in his words.

Unfortunately for Avriel, he's never really been good at that. Words get confusing without tone and when he was little, he didn't understand the point of lying until the first time he had to do it. He's a little better with it now, In the Capitol people rarely say what they mean.

Laf tries to rib him but Avriel can't deny something that's so true. "You know I hate these things," he says with a shrug. "Couldn't hide that if I tried." People act like he should be grateful for the constant attention, as if he shouldn't have tried to win if he didn't want it. Well maybe if he'd thought about it a little more he would have just laid down under Aspen's spear.

"Me? I feel great about it," he says to Lafayette, and leans back against a nearby pillar, "What about you though?" Maybe that's what's got him throwing back that drink. If Avriel isn't in the spotlight, then neither is Laffy.