I'm in My Prime // [Clamour Day 6 Rxn]

None of us are promised to see tomorrow, and what we do is ours to choose
Forget about the sunrise, fight the sleep in your eyes

He hadn't slept, and not only because Day Five had gone to shit. He'd loaded the last two canons, set their fuses. And his world had been too blurry to even see the faces of Gavin Barker and Dan Johnwayne. In the span of moments he had lost two of his best, beautiful candidates for victory. And for what? In a battle to the death, two men locked in an epic marathon of strength and wit? No. They fell to deranged muttation which had no self control, no story, nothing. In the ensuing chaos, there was no hope for the cowboy or the luscious boy.

He'd hissed instead of cried, raged all the way to his black car. He channeled everything from blistering anger to deep despair into his lovemaking that night. If it bothered Jareth, he wisely decided against saying anything. Glamour made the return journey to the Training Center in the bleak light of morning. He consoled himself with the number of true potentials left, the easy weaving of stories. They could still have a two district Final Four. That would be something. But it would not be everything he'd hoped for. Dan's storyline had been the best, the most compelling, the best suited for the arena. And his family... that had been a reveal he'd hidden up his sleeve. The excitement had rivaled that of several clever traps. But it was for naught, more wasted positive emotion.

It was tempting to be surly and unamused. Between Jareth's company and the indulgence of his styling team, he couldn't quite conjure the emo mask this, despite having spent hours with Peridot Myler. So, he laced up his high-heeled boots, touched up his lipstick and entered the command center the way he always did. "Good morning, minions. Let's try to have fewer tributes today than we had yesterday!" It was such a pitifully low bar, and yet there had already been too many days when they had barely stumbled over it. Today would not be one of those. A little tweak to the arena here, a little bit there, and a sandstorm to really shake things up. Everything aligned. Glamour leaned back, kicking his boots atop one of the flat screens.

He chewed on the side of his thumb. What was taking so long?

"Can we speed it up a little?" He looked around the room, receiving blank looks. And then suddenly, somehow, everyone was busy, ready to spring this trap or add that mutt. Glamour rolled his eyes. He looked sideways to Cadence, but she was perfectly stoic as always. As though she already knew who would win. He stuck his tongue out at her just as the show commenced. And what a show it turned out to be. He could hardly have strung together a better story if he had tried. They lined up so easily, so neatly. Not even he could predict the outcome of the four little battles that marched all eight tributes closer to death.

He gasped, with the room, as Ingrid Elwyn fell. "Just this once, little fish," he whispered, watching her drown in the sea of her own blood. He was so captivated by the image, twisting it, playing it forward and backward, manipulating the angle, that he forgot about his primary job. When Cadence lifted the canon, he could do nothing but mumble his thanks. He felt no gratitude, no relief in Ingrid's death. Yes, she was unworthy. Yes, she was from (almost) the farthest district imaginable. But she had been his little fish.

And at least she didn't light Avoxes on fire and leave them for him to mop up.

He felt no remorse at all about pulling the canon for Sonja Arcopello. She had been less savage in the arena than in her private training station, right up until the end. Alliance betrayal was always worth its weight in sponsorship. He was certain the President would be pleased, even as it pleased him to let the canon boom, announcing Sonja's goodnight. He had but a moment to regroup, to capture the footage for editing, before the Owen Name-Name met his demise, at the capable hands of Siren Baitwell.

Glamour did not care to admit how very close that fight had come to ending his finale plans. The fire, so expensive now due to the arena's distant location as well as other factors, had been scantly used. It blazed, the same color palette as the arena, all amber and orange and death. He watched Siren triumph over the blaze, and salute the fallen artist. "Good show, Miss Baitwell," Glamour said to the projection, and saluted her in return.

Three shots in rapid succession. What a coup. Glamour sat back, grin firmly in place. He spun himself about, vaguely aware that one fight dragged. "I think I've earned a drink. I'd bring you one but..." He winked and took his leave.

It was only later, several bottles of champagne deep, that he heard the news. The news that he should have witnessed firsthand, before it got mutilated by lesser minions. "This! This is a disgrace!" He announced, stabbing his index finger at the projection. It showed Erebus Turner, in his last moments, hitting the dirt. The dirt. A brother of a victor, and no one thought to broadcast his final words? It was completely irrelevant if he had actually said anything to Lethe. They had enough recordings of Erebus' voice to make a worthy speech, one siblings to a Victor. And they needed that. They needed the story, for the populace, for the President.

Because Erebus Turner was not supposed to die.

He'd already scrubbed some of his makeup, taken off his too-tight heels. He managed to slip into flat combat boots, but did nothing to fix the disarray that was his face as he stalked from his quarters to Cadence's. The ever immaculate Glamour swiped his badge. And when the door would not budge, he rattled the handle, and then took it with both hands and shook the door with everything he had. More than he had given and taken from Jareth. This was the end, the moment that he came back not to a dozen white roses, but to the President himself.

"Open the fucking door, Cadence!" He screamed, he fumed, he lamented. It was not long before he tired. And then he slid, back to the warped door, his makeup forming shadows beneath his eyes instead of tears. He leaned back, mashing his faux-hawk, and mumbled through his choked throat. "Fine, don't let me in. But you and I both know there's going to be hell to pay for this. I hope you have a shitty day too."