The 88th Afterparty

[Deleted]

"So we all agree the 88th was like, hot, right?!"

Risky dons a neon purple as she had this entire season and this afterparty ain't any different. She's center on the platform at her own Paradise Ballroom, platforms suspended 20ft above her with hologram Ariadne & Lysander Mae's performing above the party goers. There's tables lined with meats, cakes and delicacies, everything a ravish shade of lotus under the hot ass neon bulbs. Somewhere Fenta's selling madma tabs and who knows what Miss Eris is up to. 

All she knows is, everybody Capitolite who's somebody is here.

She leans to the mic, titty window pointed to the crowd as she speaks, "really, must I say more? Y'all, I want to hear the stans screaming! Shake some ass if you're a Love stan, I want to hear y'all clapping for Miss Peake -- these games were insane! Apollo's out here somewhere, fantastic job to the Gamemakers, mwah babes. I don't know about you guys but I'm scared of the dark, I would have pissed myself those last three days!" She's all grin and energy, straightening out the shoulders of the dress Queenie's been prepping for her all month. 

"Now, this after party's for all you money-haver's who came out and sponsored these games, you all turned it out for a phenomenal games so y'all deserve a good ass night! And to my broke socialites out there, well..." Risky rolls her eyes, pointing into the crowd of bitches with a finger like a death stick, "let it be known the gate out back's unlocked for y'all." 

Save a girl her nails and throw yourself out! 

"As always, I'm excited to have y'all in my Paradise, go ahead, have some confetti poppers and enjoy the night, you know you want to," she says, rolling dice with her hands. "Tonight's y'all's chance to make some Capitol head lines; get crazy, do what you have to do! Sign up for the H.G. Simulation, we'll be running that some time after crowning this year's Mx. Afterparty, bitch! Serve some face and you might walk home with a new mill in your pocket." 

Busy night bitch, Risky's been pregaming since the top 8 for this. Ain't no one busier than the Queen Bee, anyways. 

"But first, we're kicking things off with the man of the year, you guys already know!" Hot off the recap, somewhere somehow the 88th is accessible in every quarter of the capitol at this point. "If you guys don't already know, Avriel Bapt-" 

👏           👏         👏

Risky holds her breath as the Capitolite's cheer, she can't even get the words out of her mouth before they cut her off. Oh bitch, "Avriel Baptiste is in the motherfuckin' building!" She has to give it another second before the hype dies down, "glammed and pampered, baby, this will be your first chance to meet the legend himself!" 

At this point, who doesn't want to meet their favorite murderer. 

The boy from nine, first one in 22 years. She wonders what the afterparty in that district's gonna be like, "ask him out, take selfies with him -- I don't care, I'm not legally responsible for you all. He's coming out now so y'all, make some noise again for AAAVRIEL!"

---

OOC: hey hey! welcome to the 88th afterparty, socialites! this thread isn't open quite yet, we're gonna let the new victor make his speech before everything's open. once avriel posts though? on sight, i wanna see this thread posted DAILY!

join the V.I.P. list here!

[gamemaker kelsier]

Since rising, he hasn't belonged to himself.

"Get used to it," was the only advice he'd received, "This isn't about you."

Avriel had sat there for two hours as they clipped his hair back, claiming that the damage was irreparable thanks to the blood, dirt and sand matting all the strands together. He doesn't mind it half as much as they assume that he does, hair is just hair.

He's lost more than that.

Now he stares at another mirror as they cut his hair shorter for the evening's event. His crown sits on the makeup table in front of him and Scout sits within it, a child stuck in a play pen.

Av already isn't looking forward to wearing it again, it's far too heavy for his head.

And he doesn't like what it implies.

Gloria glides in, all done up and scoops Scout up, "He's not going to like it out there," she chirps, "I'll have him sent to your room for safe keeping."

Her tone implies that she's doing him a favour but Avriel hasn't been parted from Scout since Areto's death. He grimaces and holds his hand out for the little kodama, already struggling in Gloria's taloned grasp. She ignores him, already moving away at top speed.

"So kind of the Fenwicks to provide a luxury suite for you in Saturn City!" she says cheerily. Her heels clicking on the linoleum leave a cold beat at the back of his head.

Avriel sighs, eyes on his reflection again. He doesn't look like himself anymore, his cheeks have gone hollow. He didn't even like looking at himself much before this and seeing himself on the screen has been even worse, the boy up there, eyes wide, soft, holding onto Areto for hours after her death.

That's not him either.

That's too much, that's not him.

But what if they want that boy? Raw and bleeding still.

"Someone get Avriel in the wings," comes a heated command through a headset, "Risky's starting early."

He shuts his eyes as they dust setting powder over his makeup, just enough to make him look a little less exhausted, and then he's being led quickly down a long hallway. Like always, his body reacts first, his heart rate picks up as he hears the first murmurings of the crowd and then Risky's voice booms down the hall, introducing him as if he's even someone worth introducing.

How long until the glamour falls and they see him for real?

Risky calls his name and thunderous applause fills the building, pushing out all other sound. Avriel squeezes his eyes shut and steps backwards into the peacekeepers that have been stuck to him like glue since he left the medical ward. They each place a hand on his back and push him forward into the light and the applause grows louder.

People scream at him from every direction and it's like the presentation ceremony all over again but this time worse.

Neon light shines down and the Capitolites are in varying states of undress, completely different from the elegance of the morning ceremony. It's hard to look at anyone too long, purple skin and glowing teeth smile at him from every corner and Avriel is completely overwhelmed.

He stands there in silence, wide-eyed and so uncomfortable and wishing to be anywhere but there.

"Don't get humble on us now!!" Risky says and he feels an elbow in his side.

Avriel winces, opens his mouth, "Uh," he says.

The crowd goes silent, waiting for wisdom but Avriel has absolutely none.

"Thanks for coming," he offers.

The crowd goes wild and Avriel turns to leave, hands in his pockets to hide the shake, but then there's Gloria in the hallway he emerged from, gesturing wildly at the crowd.

'Not done!' she mouths at him.

He turns around again and the crowd seems to go quiet immediately, waiting for more with bated breath.

"...You really didn't have to..." he gestures at the decorations, the holograms, the lights, "You didn't have to do all this for me."

That feels like enough but no one makes a move, they want more. Sweat drips down the back of his neck from standing under the hot lights and Avriel opens another button on the suit jacket Robbie put him in, revealing a bare chest dusted with a fine glitter.

"...Actually I wish you hadn't," he says.

Confused looks.

"But you did, so... uh... enjoy yourselves?"

Good enough. The crowd seems to like it and Risky takes the spotlight back to start a recap. Avriel makes a beeline for the stairs down to the first floor, rushing to get away from Gloria before she can corner him and tell him how much he just embarrassed her.

Too many people, too many expectations that he can't hope to fulfill and he hates crowds, always has, but it's not like the Peacekeepers can keep up with him in one.

He reaches the bottom step and slips into the stream of the VIP lounge.

[Deleted]

Sampson's heels enter the room before he does, like gunshots bitch bang-bang, "now I know this party didn't start without me!" Chest out with neon red locs down to his V-line, Sampson's got boxing gloves on a necklace and not a bead of sweat on him after two pre-parties and one hell of a pregame. He starts off scanning the room, like a goddamn red laser looking for the people who know him who he knows back.

It's just in time to hear Victor Avriel Baptiste mince some words with what sounds like a grateful apology. Oh it makes Sampson so mad; not that a District 9 boy is awkward, no no, Sampson's used to that with Colgate. What pisses a stylist off is when a legacy like Emerson Le Roux slipped through the cracks, and so an awkward boy from 9 is on that stage.

Tragedy, love. 

Huge. 

There's drama in the way Avriel leaves the crowd between bated breathes, he raises a hand to his own chest when the boy turns around for his last line or so. Avriel Baptiste decrees it -- as it is written, it shall be motherfuckin' so! Sampson grabs his flute of whatever-the-fuck, it's bubbling at the surface and blue and his eyes dilate after the first sip. 

"That's the shit I'm looking for!" It ain't a Saturn City party without questionable substances, Sampson sloppily writes his name on the Mx. Afterparty slip with a staple "you can end the list there, babe," to the teller. Sampson shakes his locs before breaking through the thick of the crowd. 

"Move it, move it, you heard the victor! Enjoy yourselves bitch- JEMMAAAAAAAAA!" Sampson shouts through the crowd, "WHERE is my Quartz!" It's practically unlawful to be caught in a crowd without a good judy, he take a second to sip his whatever-the-fuck. 

And another, and a third sip. 

He squints as he continues, lipgloss smearing on the tiny flute's straw. Hmm. 

"Where oh where are my bad bitches?"

[✨ zozo.]

Girls, I'm about to get fired.

Becoming something of a social media mogul was an inevitable accident. Saying I didn't need a manager wasn't, but now I'm kinda starting to regret it because I was late trying to find the password for this venue's POLA account I'm supposed to be managing tonight. I got the mail alert, saw how much they wanted to pay me, texted back a 'K.' and didn't read much else. Turns out I gotta post the entire night? Fuck!

And to make matters worse I took too many Gems (they named a pill after me, cute huh?). How do you spell--

"JEMMAAAAAAAAA!"

Hey that's my name. Right?

-- party? P-A-R-Y-- no, shit, backspace--

"WHERE is my Quartz!"

"Babe, I'm in the shit. Rrrrrrreal bad," the letter R tastes funny and I laugh, raising my phone up to snap a pic. If there's one thing I can do out of my fucking mind, it's tag @sampsoncrowe. Muscle memory's a good bitch.

"I gotta take like 40 pics tonight or they'll want their deposit back!" camera flashing in my hands. "And I already spent it on this bag!" A sparkle emoji or five, swipe three times for a filter, is it really a shade of blue or am I just high?

"Where oh where are my bad bitches?"

Jerk a thumb to my left, point twelve-o'clock sharp, I'm a compass. Keeping track of these lunatics at a party is a part-time job I'm severly underpaid for. "Ariadne, just arrived. Wilder, stage. Sailor," who the fuck cares -- "who the fuck knows?"

I guess I gotta find her, side-chick on someone's arm. Career stylists always get a few more decades of relevancy for simply being associated. Bitch!

"Wanna Gem?" lift up my tiny pink diamond case to their face, shake it around like a rattle. Risky walks past, I get it in slow motion. The light always hits her just right, contoured for the gods. I can feel the sound of my pills on my face and I still don't know what venue I'm supposed to tag, hit post anyway.

[Deleted]

"BOOOO BITCH!" The best word to describe Vanya Bellisario would be pissed. So-called victor can't even talk straight, a speech that's more stutters than words -- Love could have done better avoxed. She herself could have done better at 17, blue haired and red in the face as Vanya watches Avriel close his segment so awkwardly. 

So ungratefully. Her brother died for this?! 

She and a few others chased after the victor after he left the stage; Vanya, with little hesitation. There's a heat in her cheeks that only comes from boring people and heavy liquor, imagine it combined. The nerve, the audacity, the fucking guts to choose to live through it all and not even enjoy the afterparty. 

C'mon kid. Like, uber unprofessional here. She's not afraid to run a Capitolite or two over on the way to the V.I.P. lounge, butting her way into the smoked out room. There's a mist coming out from the room, layers and layers of smoke & humidity billowing out into the hall. It's the first thing she sees, a blanket of fog. 

And then "Baptiste!" 

She flips him off as she greets him, before digging out the VR ticket from her pocket to toss at the victor. "Ever heard of the Meta-dome? Meet me there if you've got a spine," and she doesn't believe he does. From everything she's seen, from back to the training center, this boy shouldn't have lived over Love. 

If he shows up, she's killing him as soon as it starts. 

"Oh, and fuck you!" is the last thing Vanya says before leaving the V.I.P. lounge. 

[gamemaker kelsier]

A drink is pushed into his hand pretty much right away and Avriel inspects it for a moment first. He's never really been into drinking anything but black coffee and water but every now and then a gang he's working for at the time will insist on drinks after a job well done. He's good then at going for a can of cheap beer because at least he can trust those to taste like shit.

The glass they pass off to him is facetted and translucent lilac but the liquid inside is crystal clear. He sniffs it carefully and it smells like water but when Avriel takes a sip, a series of flavours flood his palette all at once. Raspberry, then cream come hand-in-hand and it's chased by the bitterness of lemon. He blinks, tongue numb from the substance and puts the still-half full cup down on a passing tray.

And the light warps above his head, swirling up out of its set path to waft around his head. He shuts his eyes as the anthem plays briefly through one of Risky's highlight reels and suddenly it's so loud, all around him, just as it was in the arena. "Hey wait," he mutters and steadies himself on a table, "Let's turn that off?"

But no one can hear him above the sound of metal crashing against metal. He opens his eyes and there he is, giant on a big screen, bleeding out with a mangled foot, Reece alive in front of him.

"Vouloir c'est pouvoir," echoes his voice across the crowd and the crowd screams back to want is to be able!

Avriel winces and turns away, searching for somewhere quiet to be but there's no escape, everywhere he turns there's just someone else standing there waiting for him. Hands take his and let go again in moments, there's a voice in his ear, a chin propped on his shoulder, breath too close and Avriel shudders. The fawning is endless, they touch everywhere and he opens his mouth, then closes it again

His breathing picks up, it's hard to breathe at all, there's so much smoke in the room and Avriel pushes back gently, excuses falling like rain from his lips as he searches for an exit. He's nowhere close when someone calls out for him.

"Baptiste–" yells some lady with blue hair.

Avriel blinks at her as she flips him off, just one hand because the other is digging in her pocket for something. He waits, frozen, wondering if she's got a weapon and she's come to kill him not even a week since he left the arena. When she reveals her hand though, all she has is some paper ticket.

It flutters into the air gently when she throws it at him and Avriel watches it flip about as it seems to fall into his hand. He blinks at it, the drug in his system makes the lettering on it enlarge, bulge, pop and fly away. It's not supposed to do that.

"Nah, haven't hearda that," he answers her even as his fingers close around the ticket.

She's angry as hell at him but Avriel's so used to that reaction upon meeting someone new now that it hardly phases him. Still, whatever this invitation is, date, meet-up, whatever, Avriel isn't so certain that he wants to go at all.

"Hey wait," he says as the girl stomps off as quickly as she arrived, "Who're you?"

But she's already gone and the gap that she made when she left is quickly filled by someone else.

[✨ zozo.]

fox augustine ;

Now I know what you're thinking -- what the fuck is this little rat doing at the hottest party on earth? And the answer is I'm here for a job. Why else would I be on this list? Mr. Cop made one phone call and bam, there I am, Fox Augustine all the way at the bottom. I saw the bouncer scrolling for like a good thirty seconds. Funny how I'm both at the peak social event of the year and yet know damn well I'm still a piece of shit. Boss likes to make a point. A reminder that I'm not here for drugs and fame, I'm here to work bitch!

But he said act like I'm supposed to be there, so, uh, I got roped into the Games simulation. My bad! I turned up with real blood bursting from a real split lip I got not 7 hours ago and they just assumed I was dressed the part. Um, my bad? I forget that there are parts of this city that don't normalise looking like you just got out of a fight, slurring a "you should see the other guy" with a shit-eating grin.

Right, the job! I'm supposed to keep an eye on a few people in the corners, looking like wallflowers but actually looking for people like me. Takes one to know one, guess I'll get a better view from up on the stage?

Shit man, Boss is gonna kill me. But who would suspect an idiot like me to actually be a super spy? Not me, ha! Not supposed to drink on the job, but I'm a shadows kinda guy. I get stage fright! So I grab a drink of something the colour of Risky's hair and drink, spluttering out two fuck!'s as realisation hits me like that guy from earlier's fist to my jaw.

I'm not supposed to drink on the job -- "Fuck!"

I get stage fright and am about to compete in some wacko games simulation in front of all of these people -- "Double-fuck!"

[Deleted]

A  S  H  .

"Hey wait, who're you?"

"Oh, wow," Ash says as Vanya Bellisario gives the newest victor some tasteful sign language. Blue haired demon brushes past the both of them out of the VIP, leaving Avriel on read in person while Ash gags for the camera. 

Sure enough, Bellisario is out of there and just as quick Ash Fixated is in her spot. "What a bitch, am I right? Ash Fixated," they reach out and shake Baptiste's hand, "with The Buzz: TM! I've heard you're shy so don't worry, I'll do the talking." As if that was ever a question, they pick up a sample martini from the VIP platter. "I ask questions, you give tea, we all know the drill by now, yeah?" 

They wave off the remark as they and the cameraman take a seat next to District 9's newest victor, thee hottest moment in the Capitol at the moment. "So ohmygod, your hair looks incredible, tell me all about your stylist, tell me everything. How has the Capitol been treating you?" They say before sipping Martini out of the little glass straw. 

"Good, right? If not, well, who do I need to talk to." Fucking with a victor is fucked up! 

---

[ gamemaker kelsier ]

[gamemaker kelsier]

"Oh wow"

Avriel blinks, then slips the ticket into his pocket for later. It's hard to focus now with the loudness of the crowd, the highlights and music blasting in the background. Sound fills him and then hollows him out, chasing down everything else until he's empty.

Another lady with blue hair is talking but she looks way less upset with him. Avriel clenches and unclenches his hands slowly, trying hard to soothe himself. His thoughts feel different, his head heavy for a moment and then light again. That drink– whatever that was, it hurt him.

It made him weak.

His hand is being shook and Avriel shakes back weakly. Every move is a choice now, every breath taken with intention. Ash Fixated she says and he's can't help but agree. It feels like his chest hardly wants to rise anymore.

Avriel sinks into a chair slowly and Ash sits down beside him. She's saying something, maybe it's important, Av doesn't know. Their skin hurts.

"Good," Avriel echoes softly, "Robbie, he's good, he puts shit in my hair that smells like strawberries."

Strawberries always made Av think of Duke, two years old and sitting on the counter, covered in berry juice, the biggest grin ever on his face. He winces, holds a hand to his chest and digs his fingers into the skin there. A wave of home sickness threatens to capsize him, large and heavy, it holds Avriel down.

It's as if the drink has amplified everything.

"Um," they say, glancing at the cameraman behind Ash's head, "Everyone's been real nice... so far." Av's eyes slide back to the camera and then look back at Ash again. He wracks his brain, knowing that Gloria gave him a whole spiel of what she wanted him to say but he's lost it since.

"I think it's weird, never had so many people having opinions about me before," Av slips a hand into his pocket and runs his hand over the paper ticket he'd just been given, "Thought I was ready to be hated, but I dunno."

He feels fragile, lost a little bit. Some people handle him gentle, as if his skin is made of glass while others hold him to standards higher than he could ever hope to reach.

Av opens their mouth.

I just wanna go home.

He can't say that so he shuts it again.

His hands are resting on his knees, unfurled into half fists. A group girls walk by them, their hair done up like how Aspen's was. His knee jumps up and down beneath his hand and Avriel looks at Ash. Then Av shrugs.

"It is what it is I guess."