In which the Victors of District 3 play Jenga

[like-a-clock.livejournal.com]

The difficulty with being Victors is that the Capitol always has a means of controlling you.

The difficulty with being two of the brightest people on Panem is that if someone wants something invented, chances are that people come to you for it.

The difficulty with being two key people working in an underground rebellion is that there are an awful lot of secrets. Things to invent. Tasks to do.

Combine these factors with two people who are prone to burning their candles at both ends, and you have a potential for disastrous results. Mistakes. Slips of memory, slips of discretion. Not to mention physical and mental collapse.

Which is why they were both glad Wiress had come up with the idea to work in a room upstairs from the bar. They were able to get caught up, sleep as long as they needed to afterwards, and still get things done, all without time passing in their world.

So Beetee and Wiress have been around, but they've been working on things upstairs, only coming down to the bar when they were on the verge of collapsing from hunger.

And now they're caught up.

And so, after a celebratory dinner, now they are playing a game, something they don't often get to do together. They sit across from each other, leveling their gaze at a rectangular stack of blocks of wood. Wiress takes her little finger and slides one smooth wooden block out from the middle of the carefully constructed pile and delicately stacks it on top.

"Your turn," she murmurs to Beetee.

[tiny tag: Beetee and Wiress]

Comments

[of-district-3.livejournal.com]

Beetee squints under his glasses at the stack of wood, trying to figure out which block to choose. Wiress has always been much better at this game than him. It's frustrating.

Finally, he chooses one and slides it out carefully, one eye narrowed in concentration. The block is placed on top and he sits back with an expression of satisfaction. "Your turn."

[like-a-clock.livejournal.com]

She leans her chin on the table, looking up and down at the tower. It looks really tall from this vantage point.

"It's weird not having anything left to work on," she murmured, sliding another block out, and reaching up to place it on the top.

"I feel..." Weird. Strange.

Lost in my head.

[of-district-3.livejournal.com]

He nods slightly, back to concentrating on the game. One finger moves slowly and methodically up and down the stack of wood, not quite touching it. This is difficult. Difficult and frustrating.

"You could find something to make for people here, I suppose...to keep your mind occupied."

[like-a-clock.livejournal.com]

"I suppose," she says, as she waited for Beetee to make a move.

"But I also think...maybe...I should get used to the space. A little?"

It might be a good idea. Her brain will get filled up and their time will get filled up again before she knows it.

[of-district-3.livejournal.com]

His eyes narrowed to slits as he oh-so-carefully slipped a block from it's place and set it on top. "Well...yes. Possibly. Still, you know how I feel about becoming complacent..."

[like-a-clock.livejournal.com]

Wiress nodded. "Don't do it."

She looked up at him, smiling a little. "There's a difference between complacency and reserving one's strength."

Which is what she was doing now, as far as she was concerned.

[of-district-3.livejournal.com]

He lifted a brow, crossing his arms on the table in front of him. "...not much of a difference."

[like-a-clock.livejournal.com]

"It's a question of mindset," she affirmed. She slid out another block, placing it deftly on the top.

[of-district-3.livejournal.com]

"Yes, and I presume that you know my mindset, so this is a pointless debate." He made a face as she so deftly placed her block. She really was too good at this.

Then he was back to trying to select the perfect block again.

[like-a-clock.livejournal.com]

"And yet, it still comes up...from time to time," she says, watching him as he concentrated.

Most of their debates were ones they'd gone over before. After twenty-three years of nearly constant companionship, one did tend to repeat discussions. And arguments.

[of-district-3.livejournal.com]

"Mm. And yet..." he agrees absently as he searches. "It comes up because I make a perfectly valid point...."

[like-a-clock.livejournal.com]

"As you do..."

She watches him as he searches. She knows what the next move should be, but then...she's very good at this game.

"...But so do I."

[of-district-3.livejournal.com]

"I suppose..." Which is as close to agreeing with this as he's going to get.

He finally picks a block...and it isn't even close to what the next move should be. It doesn't wreck the whole game but it does make it wobble slightly when he places the block on top. She's so much better at this...

[like-a-clock.livejournal.com]

Hmm...this will take pondering. She leans her chin on her hands and waits for the tower to stop wobbling and thinks about how to re-balance the structure.

She briefly considers throwing the game so they could start over, but if she did, he'd know anyway. And that would embarrass the two of them.

"I understand there's an outdoors to this place."

At least she's surmised, by the bits of conversation she'd heard bandied about the bar when they've come down for their brief, hurried meals.

[of-district-3.livejournal.com]

His brow furrows faintly, and he tries not to notice the wobbling. But yes, he would know if she threw the game, and he wouldn't appreciate it.

"But it's warm inside." He doesn't have much of a use for outside, and frankly it doesn't really occur to him that outside here would be different from outside at home. Beetee is a bit of a creature of habit.

[like-a-clock.livejournal.com]

"I don't see anyone wearing coats," she observed. "That would tell me that it might be warm outside." She glanced over at the Observation Window. "Despite what we see out of the window..."

Wiress doesn't look for long. "This place presents an interesting ontological conundrum."

But she turns her attention back to the problem at hand, counterbalancing the structure so that it re-balances.

[of-district-3.livejournal.com]

Beetee doesn't like looking out the Observation Window. It unsettles him. If there's anything that will overpower his natural curiosity over a thing, it's being unsettled.

"Yes, it might be..." He will have to investigate further. Later. When there aren't stacks of wooden blocks in front of him. Absently his finger begins tapping at the table. "And yes, it does."

[like-a-clock.livejournal.com]

Wiress makes her move, taking her block from the heavier of the sides, and placing it carefully in just the right space on top.

"How the place exists, if what I've picked up from bits of overheard conversation is in any way accurate, is completely unexplainable by typical physics."

And really...just about anything is explainable by typical physics. At least on Panem, it is.

[of-district-3.livejournal.com]

His tapping gets a bit more insistent. "Yes. Which is why I try a great deal not to think about it." His brow furrows and he squints at the tower, because that's easier to think about.

[like-a-clock.livejournal.com]

"It certainly makes the concept of 'magic' easier to accept."

Mostly because the physics of it all makes her brain hurt. And that is not usually something that happens.

[faithful_lt]

He's sitting at the bar, absently tracing the woodgrain with the tip of his finger as he lingers over a cup of coffee -- but the game quickly draws Hoshi's attention.

Trying not to be rude, he leans sideways on his barstool, hoping to get a better look.

[like-a-clock.livejournal.com]

[ooc: hi! Wiress, Beetee, Louis for a posting order?]

Wiress' concentration breaks for a moment while she's studying the structure. She can usually tell when they've caught someone's attention.

Her eyes flick over momentarily, and then back to the structure, looking thoughtful.

[of-district-3.livejournal.com]

Of course, when Wiress notices, Beetee notices her noticing. It's unavoidable. He glances over as well and blushes faintly; he's never been entirely comfortable with being watched, ironically enough.

[faithful_lt]

[ooc: hi! and that posting order works for me, absolutely.]

He winces a little.

"Sorry," Hoshi calls over, and the sincerity of his apology's clear in his tone. "I didn't mean to interrupt, just -- I've never seen something like that before."

[like-a-clock.livejournal.com]

Wiress smiles crookedly. "It's...we're just not entirely..." comfortable with being watched.

She slides a block out from the pile and places it carefully on top. She looks at Beetee and nods slightly. He's all right.

[of-district-3.livejournal.com]

"...comfortable being watched." He finishes for her and gives an apologetic look. "It's, uh, all right. You can watch if you like, I suppose." Then something occurs to him. "It's, uh, a game? The object is to remove a block from the middle and place it on the top without disrupting the balance of the structure."

[faithful_lt]

This time the wince is a lot more visible.

"Sorry," he says again. "I don't want to bother you."

[like-a-clock.livejournal.com]

"It's all right." Wiress waited for Beetee to make his move. "I'm Wiress."

Oh, she didn't get distracted that time...that was a good thing.

[of-district-3.livejournal.com]

Beetee simply waves off the apology, distracted in concentration once again. Oh so much concentration.

Eventually, the Perfect Piece is ascertained and he places it atop the stack triumphantly.

"Ha." Oh, yes, introductions. "I'm Beetee. And you are?" Because if he's going to be watched, he would appreciate a name to go with the body, if nothing else.