Chapter Text
Lights!: Alara
It’s far too early to be yelling already - Alara steels herself and does it anyway, “Orville!” She turns and snaps her fingers at the round, red-faced boy who stands there sputtering pathetically at her, clutching his clipboard to his chest like a security blanket. “Why is it that I wasn’t informed we’d be having a change in head stylist?” She’d seen the news, of course - no way Pontius was coming out of that mess with his career intact - but it’s an unusual slip for Orville not to mention something so important to her directly.
“Oh… I… ah… well…” He trails off before he can come up with an excuse, flipping through the papers on his clipboard nervously. Spineless as ever, I see. Not waiting around for an introduction, the reptilian-looking man hovering just next to Orville reaches out a hand. Before she can decide whether to grace him with her acknowledgment, Voltaea has already reached out and pulled him into a frenetic handshake of her own.
“Anton!” Alara flashes a bewildered look at her girl as she addresses the stranger by name - How is it that you know someone around here that I don’t? “You’re in charge now? How did that happen?!”
“You didn’t hear?” The man beams at her with an ear-wide smile - “Girl, you are the reason this happened! I owe you bigtime, by the way - I literally screamed when you went for that cape!” He’ll get to repay that favor he owes much sooner than he thinks. “I got the call to take over the next morning - though I did have to promise your interview look wouldn’t be as hazardous.”
Voltaea shakes her head, and without hesitating quips- “Too bad. I was hoping I could blow up the stage when they started asking me tough questions.” It earns an earnest laugh from Anton and a scattered, uncomfortable chuckle from the rest of the styling team who clearly has no idea if she’s serious or not - And frankly darling, given how you behaved yesterday I’m not sure either.
“If it wasn’t my job on the line, I’d have paid good money to see that.” Anton flashes a quick wink that makes Alara’s skin crawl - Don’t you dare look at her like that. He keeps chattering away, blissfully unaware of the skull-piercing glare directed right at him - “But I think you’ll like what I have for you. It was short notice, of course, but I spent two very late nights custom making this look with you in mind.” Voltaea has clearly noticed her frustration, because as her mind swims with all of the ways she could ruin this man, an arm snakes around her midsection and pulls her tight to the girl’s side. Bewildered, Alara looks up to see Voltaea toss the same sort of flirtatious wink in her direction - I… what? Her head spins and her face burns and she feels utterly repulsed at her own lack of composure as the stylist continues without so much as a glance in her direction. “Anyway, Minerva is taking over with your partner, and she has a whole different aesthetic in mind so this one should really make you stand out from the…” Anton trails off as his eyes finally wander over in her direction, widening in shock when he notices how entangled she is with her tribute right now. Well then. I suppose he’s as good a person to break the story as any. He clears his throat sharply - “... crowd. Ah.” Pausing awkwardly and blinking a few times seems to cure his stumbling - At least he’s better at a recovery than Orville. “We have plenty of time, but I’d still like to get started early in case you want to make any alterations before we get you out there.”
Voltaea looks like she’s about to say something but Alara jumps on the opening first - It’s cute that you think you’re taking charge, darling, but we have too much to do today - “Let’s get to work, then.” She claps her hands together sharply. “Anton, was it?” The stylist nods and snaps to attention when he’s addressed - And he comes trained! Perhaps it is my lucky day. “I have a much more comfortable space we can use just down the hall in my private quarters, if you’d like?” She makes a point to look over the rest of the assistants with disdain before adding - “Just you. So long as you think you can handle the work on your own, of course.”
The hushed, speculative whispers flying around the room tell her this is having exactly the effect she’d hoped it would - Every last one of you is going to be talking about us after tonight. “Oh, I would definitely like.” Anton is all too eager to take her up on the offer, grabbing the handle of a wheeled wardrobe and turning back to her with a smile - “Lead the way!”
Alara wraps a possessive arm around her girl - making a big show of it for the small crowd behind her as she leads them down the hall to her suite. “Now, Anton, you’ll have to promise me to keep this between us - I don’t let just anyone in here you know.”
The stylist stops dead in the entryway, gasping - for fucks sake, it’s not that interesting in here. “Oh my gods, my mom is going to scream when I tell her about this - she’s like your biggest fan, you know. I’m pretty sure she’s seen every episode of the Crimson Cut, we used to watch it all the time when I’d stay home from school and-”
Alara grits her teeth and interrupts him, trying not to let how old that statement makes her feel seem too obvious - “If you wouldn’t mind stepping in and shutting the door before you start telling us your life story-”
“Oops!” Anton pulls the wardrobe into the room and shuts the door behind him - “Sorry about that, excitement got the best of me for a second there.” He straightens himself back out and tries to hide the excited smile threatening to overtake his face.
“Just pull your things over to the vanity, I have a styling chair in the closet you can haul out as well - though you might have to dig a bit to find it.” Anton nods to her and gets to work setting himself up. Turning to Voltaea, who has fallen almost suspiciously silent since they left the lounge, she whispers - “Are you alright, darling? You seem…” She looks her girl over for a moment, noting the way she’s clenching her fist so her nails dig into her scar - “Nervous?”
“Confused.” Voltaea corrects, turning to face her. “Why did you bring him in here? Shouldn’t we be working with Orville and Coulomb on interview strategies? That was the whole plan you had this morning, remember?”
Please do keep up, my love, I hate explaining myself. “Mhm. And do you recall our other plan? The one we discussed last night, involving how we were going to smuggle your advantage into the arena?” In spite of her best efforts, she still sounds slightly annoyed when she asks, but Voltaea still nods along. Alara points to the closet, where Anton is now banging around inside looking for the well-buried styling chair. “That man is the key to making sure our endeavor is a success.” Voltaea still looks confused, so with a heavy sigh she explains - “I did tell you that the stylists are in charge of bringing in District tokens for screening, yes?” Her girl nods again - Good. Keep listening because I’ll only say this once. “With that in mind, I’m going to have him sew one of your patches into each quilted square of that handkerchief I gave you.” Voltaea gives her a skeptical look and she jumps to her own defense - “I’ll have you know I used this exact trick to great success when I had to smuggle my medications into District Two for the special episode we shot two years back when that ugly boy won, Bruce or Brutus or something. Terribly tight security, and a zero tolerance policy for anything fun.” My personal nightmare. May they never win again. At least when Selica takes a crown we get to spend the week touring wineries. Wrangling her mind back to the moment, she continues - “Anyway, with a bribe to the examiner to be a little less thorough than usual, this should be enough to slip everything through for you.”
“Are you sure that’ll work? What if he gets caught, wouldn’t that mean-” Voltaea stops abruptly, flinching as Anton drags the styling chair out of the closet - a loud, metallic scraping sound following along as he struggles through the doorway. With a comforting squeeze, Alara pulls her tighter and feels the tension melt in response to her touch - Good girl.
“Don’t worry about a thing, my love. I need your focus on tonight’s interview. It’s our last chance to make an impression before… well. Tomorrow.” She can’t bring herself to talk about the Games today. Every time she even hears the word now her stomach goes into revolt and her heart threatens to hammer out of her chest. Alara doesn’t realize she’s crying until she feels her girl brush the tear off her cheek. Damnit - pull yourself together, Alara! We have company!
Voltaea leans down, whispering softly in her ear - “It’s going to be okay. You still think I’m going to win, right?” Alara doesn’t say anything, just buries her face against the side of her girl’s neck and nods. “Then I’ll win.” No doubts. No hesitation. You did learn from the best, I suppose. It’s enough to calm her nerves, for now.
They stand there, content to drown in each other’s embrace, until they’re interrupted by Anton loudly clearing his throat and wrench themselves apart. “I think I’m just about ready, if you want to get started?” When they turn to him, he whips around to fiddle with something in his makeup bag - Does he think I can’t feel him leering every time we look away?
Alara follows her girl across the room, perching herself atop the vanity so she’s facing the other two. Anton pulls his wardrobe forward - “Now for the moment of truth.” he mutters, mostly to himself, before opening it with a flourish to reveal the fully outfitted display mannequin inside and her jaw drops before she can stop it - Gods above, I’m going to enjoy peeling that off of you later.
The dress - If there’s even enough of it there to qualify as a dress - is about as far from Voltaea’s parade jumpsuit as Alara could possibly imagine. The deep purple-blue, tight-looking fabric attaches to one shoulder capped with a jagged, bladed, glass sculptural piece and drips to just under the knee on one side while barely cresting over the top of her thigh on the other. A pair of elaborate glass platform heels accented with the same sort of chaotic edges as the shoulder-piece complete the ensemble. “I know it looks kind of plain but just wait, I gave it a little spark - safely, this time, of course.” He giggles to himself and moves to adjust something on the back when suddenly the entire thing crackles to life. Bright gold circuitry patterns pulse across the surface before exploding into the glass parts of the outfit like a flash of lightning - “Ok, so I’ve got the whole thing set to go off at random right now, but there’s a switch on the back of the shoulder you can use to switch to a voice activated mode - whichever you think is more dramatic !”
“Um…” Voltaea shifts nervously in her seat as she looks the whole thing over. “It’s neat but… um. Isn’t that a little… exposed, for wearing in public?” Haven’t we been over this enough times by now?
“Darling, you’re gorgeous - there’s no need for modesty.” She nods, though still looks skeptical as Alara turns to face Anton and smirks triumphantly - “It’s perfect. Now let’s make my girl shine!” He claps excitedly then sets to work undressing the mannequin as she hops down from her perch to find something of her own to wear for the day, content enough for now to leave Voltaea’s styling to the professional on site. On her way by, she swoops down and steals a kiss while the man’s back is turned and whispers, “Just yell if you need me, my love.”
Alara lingers just long enough to see the flustered look in her girl’s eyes before taking off to the walk-in closet in the hopes of digging something that matches out of the mess. Twenty minutes of hissed swears and thrown heels later, she spots exactly what she’s looking for hanging on a rack near the back. While it’s nearly floor-length and far less revealing than what her girl will be wearing, the gown is almost an exact color match. Enough of a match that people will notice, but not flashy enough to take their eyes off you.
It takes nearly as long as it had to find the dress for Alara to struggle her way into it - I should have picked something I’d worn in the last decade. She eventually gets the zipper to cooperate by pinning it in place near the top, praying to no one in particular that neither of her co-hosts notice when she runs into them later - Selica will force me on morning gym days for the next year, and I can’t live like that again.
Emerging from the closet, Alara stops stunned when she sees what the other two have accomplished in her absence. Voltaea hadn’t been wrong in her earlier assessment - You do look quite exposed, darling - but that only makes her appreciate the vision behind the look even more. The fabric clings to her and brings out curves Alara had hardly noticed before - And the way it’s cut to show your legs? Delicious. The stylist is still working away at her makeup - But that outfit alone is going to keep eyes on us. He pulls back to let Voltaea check herself in the mirror, and she frowns at her reflection. “Oh no, you hate the makeup, don’t you?” he asks nervously.
Voltaea shakes her head, “The makeup is fine, I just - why couldn’t you have put the sleeve on my bad side?” She holds up her scarred left arm at him with a disgusted look.
“Ugh, don’t be ridiculous!” Anton crosses his arms and narrows his eyes at her - “It’s distinctive. Like ‘It’s been mentioned in every single style breakdown I’ve watched of you this week’ kind of distinctive. Covering it would give up a huge part of your brand recognition and I like you too much to let you embarrass yourself like that.”
I hate that I’m about to say this, but- “He’s right, Voltaea - you have to use everything at your disposal to keep their attention on you at this stage with how tight the playing field turned out to be.” Her heart collapses into her stomach when she sees the pained look on her girl’s face at the reminder of last night’s scoring. I really am sorry to remind you. Gliding over to lay a soft kiss on her cheek, she whispers, “It’s not an indictment of your skills, my love - just the reality of how things work around here.” A sideways glance at the mirror tells her that the stylist is watching this show just as intently as she’d hoped, though still half-attempting to cover his wild, scandalized smile he takes everything in - Good, I need your new pet snake fully invested in our relationship before the night is out.
“They don’t think it’s gross? I mean, I know you don’t.” Voltaea leans her head back against Alara’s chest and looks up at her. ”The only looks I get back home about it are either sad or uncomfortable, I guess.”
Anton has finally had enough of stifling his reactions and blurts out - “You’re kidding! But it’s so cool! And since nobody knows how you got it there’s TONS of rumors going around - all of which make you look like a total badass, of course.”
“Oh. Um.” Voltaea tries to look unfazed but she’s clearly thrilled with that information, beet-red blush creeping into her cheeks as she bites back a smile. “That’s good, I guess.”
As the stylist turns his back to grab something, Alara steals a real kiss from her girl - lingering just long enough that he catches the tail end of it and nearly drops the entire armload of hair products he’s lugging over in shock. She pretends not to notice him staring as she pulls away, at least until he speaks again - “So. I don’t want you to be nervous. But I do have a few ideas about your hair…”
The biggest surprise of the day so far is how easily the little snake manages to talk her girl into wearing her hair down for the interview. “Just this once, I want them to see a completely different side of you tonight!”, “But the contrast will really sell our story!”, “Ugh, but you have such great volume! It’s a waste to have it up all the time, isn’t it?”. All true, he is quite good at his job, isn’t he? You chose your first contact in the Capitol well, darling. We can keep him. After some groaning of protest, Voltaea finally relents and lets him work his magic, weaving silvery threads of glowing filament into what ends up being a stunning wavy look when he finishes.
As the finishing touches come together, an increasingly under-medicated Alara decides to make another move - Let’s see how he takes this, then. The stylist’s attention snaps straight to the tray of stims on the coffee table the second he hears her sniff from behind him. “Oh, we’re having that kind of day, huh?” And you seem to have plenty of experience with those by the looks of it.
“Is that going to be a problem for you?” Alara can already tell it isn’t going to be any kind of an issue and starts cutting another neat line of powder.
“Only if you don’t share.” Anton teases - Audacious little fucker.
“Work first, darling, then fun. If you send my girl out on stage looking anything less than perfect, you won’t keep this job for long.” That gets his attention - he scoops up his brushes and goes right back to work on Voltaea’s face. Alara busies herself with channel surfing while they finish, keeping a mental tally of all the shows she sees her girl appear on - less than yesterday, we need to make a real splash tonight.
Finally, Anton brings Voltaea over in her finished look - and it’s the most striking thing I’ve ever seen. Not just the outfit - that was already perfect - but every color he’s chosen, every brushstroke he’s made, every strand of hair carefully pressed into place seems designed to bring out the sharpness in her features that Alara is so intoxicated with. “So. What do you think?” The stylist asks with a sly smirk - I think you should shut up and let me take this in for a moment.
“You have the ideal canvas - so I can’t give you too much credit.” Voltaea flushes as Alara turns to her and purrs - “But you do look delicious.” The stylist gives himself a silent cheer as she rises to her feet and closes the distance, pulling her girl into a tight embrace to whisper - “Would you mind heading out to the lobby, my love? I’ll be along in a few minutes.”
Voltaea pulls back and frowns - “Why? I want to stay with you.” Ugh, don’t make this difficult.
Alara tightens her grip, tugging her closer again and hissing - “Listen. I need to get this little snake on board smuggling YOUR contraband. And if he gets himself caught, I don’t want him throwing your name around when there’s six gamemakers sitting in spitting distance of a button that could kill you as punishment.” And there’s the small matter of our other plan, but that’s not for you to worry yourself with yet.
The heavy sigh she gets in response tells her she’s won this round. “Don’t be too long, okay? Orville talks too much when you’re not around.”
“I’ll be right behind you.” With that Voltaea shuffles to the door and spares a last, pleading look over her shoulder that Alara can’t help but roll her eyes at before letting it slide shut. Turning to face the stylist, she gestures to the sofa with the most welcoming smile she can muster, “Please, have a seat - there’s a little something for you on the coffee table.”
He doesn’t need to be asked twice - Alara can hear the tell-tale sounds of indulgence behind her as she glides to the dresser to fish out the hidden datapad and package of stimulant patches from her top drawer. Every carefully curated shot she’s collected of Voltaea and herself over the last few days sit in a neatly organized folder right on the home screen and her hands tremble as she flips through them one last time - Tonight we make them want you. And then we break the news that you’re already mine.
Anton, lost in thought - or too high to be paying attention - lets out a shrill shriek of shock as drops the datapad in his lap. “First of all, don’t ever make that noise in my vicinity again, understood?” He looks up at her looming over him from behind the couch and nods. “Good. If I’m not mistaken, I heard you tell my girl that you owed her - is that correct?” Another nod. He swallows hard but doesn’t speak, eyes blown wide from the stims and the obvious nerves. She pulls the handkerchief and the box of patches from behind her back tosses them at him as well. “Then you’ll be pleased to know I’ve dropped the perfect opportunities for repayment right into your lap. Now, if you’ll just pick up that datapad and open the folder in the top left corner - I’m about to hand you something that will make you famous.”