Such Convenience in Regret After the Fact [Closed]

[whatisay]

WHO| Jason and Sinclair, then Swann; Jason and Wednesday; Jason and Emily
WHAT| Jason takes Wednesday to a photoshoot, and gets caught doing shady business.
WHEN| Week 6, except Wednesday, which is pre-Arena
WHERE| Sinclair's lobby, the Tribute Center, a shi-shi photoshoot, the D7 Suite
WARNINGS| Typical Jason warnings: bigotry, abusive dynamics, general asshattery.

I. Sinclair, then Swann

There's something about courting Sponsors that always makes Jason feel like a dog begging for scraps at the table. Whether or not it's part of the job description, it's degrading, and Jason spends most of the time wishing whatever establishment he's in would catch fire or that his business partners would suddenly find their drinks full of poison.

It's all the worse this time for being across from a man who last saw him behind glass in a cell.

He strides up to the front of the bank lobby and waves down the receptionist. "Jason Compson, here to see Augustus Sinclair? I tried to get an appointment in but I don't know if it stuck or not."


II. Wednesday

As a general rule, Tributes aren't allowed in Jason's car. Wednesday's one of the few he'll give leeway to, although Virgil has to stay in a carrier. Jacques, in a kennel in the back seat, keeps chattering at the scent of the spider and grasping at the thin metal bars. The drive isn't long, and it's even pleasant, Jason speculating on

Today, it's a photoshoot at the reptile house. Jason has to check Jacques at the door, and then Wednesday's taken to the styling area. Lights, makeup, costumes, and bustle that disturbs the poor animals kept in aquariums not even ten feet away. Jason barks orders between checking on his other Tributes' schedules on his phone.

"Alright. I want a bit of her input on the clothing. And minimize the makeup, we're going for creepy child, not jailbait. She's ten." He smacks away an Avox who he deems is brushing Wednesday's hair too slowly, taking over the way he used to run through his mother's hair about a decade ago. "I have half a mind to send the mute half of you to reprogramming and fire the rest of you. This should already be dollars in the bank."


III. Emily

Things have almost returned to a normal pace in the District Seven Suite, monkey aside, with a few Tributes still with a chance in the Arena and Cassian with such limited say in the wardrobes that his only work as a Stylist seems to be procuring fabric. Jason's control over the budget has become somewhat tyrannical, but other than that there have been fewer outbursts from anyone, fewer bruised Avoxes and broken mugs. Jason's waited up night when Emily's been bid on and now, with her Citizenship, only stays late when he has more work than usual.

"Emily, did you run these expenditures past me?" He looks up at her when she walks in in the morning. The monkey is sitting on the coffee table, chewing on a still-wrapped bon-bon. "I expect Cassian to have his hands in the cookie jar, but not you."

Comments

[conifer]

Emily can't help but feel a little irritated and insulted with him springing accusations on her the moment she walks through the door. It's something she's come to expect from Jason, but it still grates every time. His attitude toward her hasn't changed at all since she gained her Citizenship, and she's not sure whether to be upset, if it's because he doesn't see her as worthy and continues to treat her as a Districter, or to be glad if he's seen past both titles despite all his posturing and prejudice otherwise, and has always just treated her as he would any other colleague all along.

She frowns a little as she casts her mind over her recent expenses in her pre-coffee haze, but it's long since become standard practice for her to run everything past Jason. It just wasn't worth his wrath not to.

"Every penny I've spent is accounted for. Is there anything in particular you think I've missed?"

[whatisay]

It's neither of those things that drives Jason's surly behavior towards Emily - it's that by granting Emily Citizenship, Jason's watching yet another thread fray on a rope that's only barely holding the world he's always known together. Citizens being Reaped, Districters given status without the Merit Program, Tributes enforcing the law - it's like he's looking at the end times, and Jason has difficulty looking at Emily as his coworker whom he's somewhat fond of when she seems an avatar of the apocalypse.

"There's fourteen assi missing, and I know it didn't come from Cassian, because his credit card has to go through me no matter how small the purchase is." Jason pulls his pen from behind his ear and chews it, not fully aware he's doing so. He drags his fingers through his hair.

Fourteen assi is a pittance. It's a cup of coffee at a mid-level cafe. And yet it's bothering him, because if it isn't Emily then he's gotten sloppy somewhere, and that could get him caught.

(The monkey slams the candy against the table.)

"Coffee's made, by the way. Get it now before the Tributes wake up."

[conifer]

Money means something different to Emily, having grown up with nothing at all. Fourteen assi would go a long way in Seven - more with the Peacekeepers than on the black market, where a trade of goods was worth far more than money, but anything that would get the Peacekeepers to soften up a little in the tense years after the riots was seen as a huge amount. She reflexively feels the fire inside her light up at knowing what a pathetic amount of money it was here, especially for Jason to be so riled up over, and she inhales long and slow to quench it back down. She's picked her side, she tells herself. It's not for her to see as an injustice any more, when she'd signed up to be one of the injust.

She frowns a little as she tries to recall whether she'd spent any money that wasn't out of her personal allowance without notifying Jason, and is positive she hasn't done so. "You have my accounts. If it's not on there, I didn't spend it."

She grimaces a little at the bitterness of the coffee and adds a couple of sugar lumps before sneaking one to the monkey. "Are you sure you haven't miscounted somewhere?"

[whatisay]

"Would I be haranguing you if I were sure?" Jason snaps, although that's the whole problem - he isn't sure. He must have miscounted somewhere. He turns his checkbook back over again, as if the answer's just been misplaced in front of his face and will reappear if he does so.

"If I thought you could do the math for this I'd have you doublecheck." That's also a lie. He doesn't want anyone else looking at the bookkeeping until he's cleaned up any indiscretions. It's not that he doesn't trust Emily in particular so much as that any person who knows what he's up to is one more variable intruding on his private concerns.

[conifer]

Emily flushes at the pointed reminder of her inferior schooling, and has to bite her tongue to stop herself from retaliating with something petty that would set him off.

"If it's that big a deal, I'll replace it myself." Not that that means she took the money in the first place, but it seems like the simplest solution to get him to stop worrying about it. "It's not really that much money, after all."

[whatisay]

"It's not the amount that matters." Jason says that with as much venom as he made the earlier statement, as if she's stupid for even thinking it's just the value. It's that something's off in his universe. Something's off and he's nervous, jumpy, harried.

"Look, just tell me if Cassian says anything. For all I know he's using the wrong credit card because they all look the same to him. I says people like that don't know what an assi's worth." He gets up and tosses the papers down with a smack onto the table. It's one of the few things he and Emily will share true understanding about, the fact that money is finite, but not one Jason would admit to having in common with a Districter.

Former Districter. He doesn't even say much more to her, just storms out with his hands in his pockets, leaving the incriminating documents on the table of a person he doesn't suspect is savvy enough to recognize embezzlement.

[conifer]

"I'll keep my ears open," she promises, to humour him more than actually thinking that she'll uncover anything significant. She's learned by now that humouring Jason is pretty much half her job.

She takes a minute to open the post that's been sent to her at the Training Centre, then reaches across to take the documents, leafing through them casually, not expecting to find anything that Jason hasn't already noted but figuring it can't hurt to double check. Even to her untrained eye, though, it's obvious that something is wrong. Her brow furrows over with worry as she reads the figures, getting a very bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

[whatisay]

With how many Tributes they have left, it's practically her entire job by now.

He comes back in about half an hour later in something of a better mood, not because he figured out where the missing fund was going but because he found a good way to hide it. It'll take withdrawing from Ben's account and shuffling a bit around, and that's a hassle, but Jason's pretty sure he can make the paper trail lead to Maury.

There's a sick satisfaction in being able to take snipes at his errant uncle from afar.

"Oh, you decided to give a look at the math? Don't bother. I'm going to the bank to get it sorted anyway."

It doesn't even occur to him that she would have noticed anything. Everyone knows most Districters can't count past their fingers and toes. He sets a coffee in a paper cup down on the table for himself, having not brought one for Emily or even considering that it might have been polite to do so.

"Stop looking at those. You'll give yourself a headache. I'm going to shred them anyway."

[conifer]

"Jason, there's something here that doesn't seem quite right. This isn't the sort of transaction Cassian would make." She looks up at him, desperate to be wrong, then quickly looks away, knowing she'd set off his anger. She doesn't think it's right to ignore it and potentially get them all into trouble, and she doesn't trust Jason to deal with his problems in any good way.

[whatisay]

"What are you talking about?"

Jason freezes for a moment, partway towards putting one of his cigarettes to his mouth. Then he resumes the motion with a sort of affected ease, reminding himself that Districters are stupid, uneducated, practically illiterate. She doesn't know what she's talking about.

"Like I said. I'll take care of it."

[conifer]

She bites her tongue to keep herself from saying that she didn't trust Jason to take care of anything. "I think we should get someone else to look at it. I know an accountancy firm, they sponsored me back in my Games."

[whatisay]

"Right, Sanders and Mink? They're terrible. They're the kind of accountants who pull out their own pocketbooks before they even look at yours." He hustles the papers back up and folds them, tucking them under his arm. "I know places that'll do it for me for free. Benefits of the name."