Howard Bassem (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iselldrugstothecommunity) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thecapitol2013-12-22 11:15 pm
iselldrugstothecommunity) wrote in thecapitol2013-12-22 11:15 pm
Entry tags:
It's the Season of Cold Making Warmth a Divine Intervention [Open]
WHO| Howard Bassem and open
WHAT| Howard celebrates Christmas. Desperately.
WHEN| A few weeks after the Crowning.
WHERE| District One Suite
WARNINGS| The R thread contains Howard teaching a now-Living zombie how and why to use the toilet.
The holidays usher in loneliness and cheer as a pair. Howard prefers to spend his attention on the latter if he can help it, and as such he's driven himself whole-heartedly into gussying up the District One suite.
The tree appears to have been outright attacked by decorations, which dangle on top of each other and hang from tinsel strands and overlap. The lounge TV has been set to play A Christmas Story on loop. Howard's set up a cheesy nativity scene for a religion he doesn't believe in out of action figures and silverware, with a little salt-shaker Jesus swaddled in toilet paper. As the rest of his suite was sleeping, Howard went full-tilt into packing the common areas with all the season's tidings of the Macy's parade and the Martha Stewart magazine December issue.
It's better than last Christmas, he tells himself. He can't even really remember much about last Christmas, except that he purposefully said "happy holidays" to Orc just to see if it would piss him off, and that it otherwise passed like any other hungry, desperate day in the FAYZ. And the one before that was the first Christmas without his parents.
And by contrasting this Christmas with the last two, he hopes he can pack up the hole he's cut out of the holiday cards where they said things like from our family to yours and to you and yours. The mutilated greetings sit atop a few meticulously-packed wrapped presents tucked under the tree. A refurbished record player for R, some of Wyatt's clothes fixed, jewelry for Julie and Eponine and Ellie, a watch for John and a wallet for Orc, a fancy cat dish for Sigma, some kind of weird scarf for his secret Santa - Howard spent barely any money on these things, but he did waste many hours digging through the garbage or pilfering from Capitol stores to accumulate them.
Each gift seems like some way to make solid that he's building a life here, that he's forming relationships he plans on keeping, like active resistance against the very real permanent death in his future. Whenever he thinks about it too hard it seems so obvious he's telling himself a lie, but he wants to keep holding onto it. Telling himself things he doesn't believe is probably one of the healthier coping mechanisms he has.
Having completed his holiday explosion, Howard sits at the counter in the kitchen, humming Christmas songs and lighting pine-scented candles.
WHAT| Howard celebrates Christmas. Desperately.
WHEN| A few weeks after the Crowning.
WHERE| District One Suite
WARNINGS| The R thread contains Howard teaching a now-Living zombie how and why to use the toilet.
The holidays usher in loneliness and cheer as a pair. Howard prefers to spend his attention on the latter if he can help it, and as such he's driven himself whole-heartedly into gussying up the District One suite.
The tree appears to have been outright attacked by decorations, which dangle on top of each other and hang from tinsel strands and overlap. The lounge TV has been set to play A Christmas Story on loop. Howard's set up a cheesy nativity scene for a religion he doesn't believe in out of action figures and silverware, with a little salt-shaker Jesus swaddled in toilet paper. As the rest of his suite was sleeping, Howard went full-tilt into packing the common areas with all the season's tidings of the Macy's parade and the Martha Stewart magazine December issue.
It's better than last Christmas, he tells himself. He can't even really remember much about last Christmas, except that he purposefully said "happy holidays" to Orc just to see if it would piss him off, and that it otherwise passed like any other hungry, desperate day in the FAYZ. And the one before that was the first Christmas without his parents.
And by contrasting this Christmas with the last two, he hopes he can pack up the hole he's cut out of the holiday cards where they said things like from our family to yours and to you and yours. The mutilated greetings sit atop a few meticulously-packed wrapped presents tucked under the tree. A refurbished record player for R, some of Wyatt's clothes fixed, jewelry for Julie and Eponine and Ellie, a watch for John and a wallet for Orc, a fancy cat dish for Sigma, some kind of weird scarf for his secret Santa - Howard spent barely any money on these things, but he did waste many hours digging through the garbage or pilfering from Capitol stores to accumulate them.
Each gift seems like some way to make solid that he's building a life here, that he's forming relationships he plans on keeping, like active resistance against the very real permanent death in his future. Whenever he thinks about it too hard it seems so obvious he's telling himself a lie, but he wants to keep holding onto it. Telling himself things he doesn't believe is probably one of the healthier coping mechanisms he has.
Having completed his holiday explosion, Howard sits at the counter in the kitchen, humming Christmas songs and lighting pine-scented candles.
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"Nicked it, didn't you," he accused brightly with a conspiratorial grin- unwrapping it completely and admiring it- knowing Howard hadn't mortgaged his soul for it made the gift far easier to appreciate. "It's really- what's this on the back? Oh, nice... would be pretty handy if they'd let me have it..."
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That expression is soon replaced with a grin. "Glad you're not mad about that."
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