thecapitol | It's the Season of Cold Making Warmth a Divine Intervention [Open]

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ellie's still in her pajamas when she emerges from her bed room and into the common room for the suite, and her presence is announced by a surprised laugh as she wanders over to the tree.

"What the fuck happened in here?" She says, completely amiably. "It's like Santa Claus blew up and coated the whole room in his holiday guts."

"I was thinking more 'attack by Christmas elves', but we can do exploding Santa, too." Howard's in his pajamas still too, although his are silk and with snowflakes on them. Without the padding his stylists usually work into his outfits, he looks even smaller and frailer, and his fingers reach like shadows.

He grins and heads over to flop down on a couch. "You may and should deliver all your holiday tribute to me, your vaunted ruler, under the tree of offerings."

Ellie does an elaborate bow, with lots of flailing hand gestures. "Of course, Oh Supreme Lord of Santa's Guts," She says as her fingertips touch the floor and she comes back up again.

"Give me two seconds and I'll run back and get it."

True to her word, she ran back to her room and then returned. The package was obviously wrapped by her, and not by anyone in the capitol, and in fact seems to be a little soggy on the bottom.

"You have to promise not to fucking laugh," She says and she hands it to him. "I made one of the creepy slaves help me."

Howard cackles and claps his hands with glee, lifting his feet from the floor and kicking them a little while he waits. He pulls his tribble, warm and purring, from his pocket and tosses it in the air. It seems to purr even more loudly when it lands.

He's got Ellie's present waiting in his lap when she returns. "Dude, what are creepy slaves for if not for gift-wrapping stuff? Hand it over."

She grins and climbs onto the couch over the back so she can land next to him. She holds it out.

"Here," is all she says. Inside is a large apple tart that she baked, with help from an avox. It doesn't necessarily look the most appetizing, but she hopes it tastes alright anyway.

Baked goods tended to remind her of him, after all.

Howard keeps the wrapping paper, even though it's soggy, and holds the tart in his hands like it's a seedling in a handful of soil. "Ellie, this is..."

Food is one of the most important things you can give someone, and he knows she knows that too. They come from similar backgrounds.

"This is awesome. Now your gift is going to look totally lame."

Ellie grins. "I hope it tastes alright. I never really baked before but I thought it was worth a shot." She settles in a little deeper into the couch.

"I'm sure your gift is awesome, Howard. Did you do all this, by the way?" She asks, waving a finger around the common room.

"Man, who cares what it tastes like, you baked me a thing." Howard holds it up to the microwave like offering a sacrifice to a god. He punches some numbers in, beaming.

"And yes, I am totally responsible for disemboweling Santa. None of the rest of you roommates were getting into it."

"It wasn't really a big thing where I came from," Ellie says apologetically as she drapes herself upside down on the couch, hair touching the floor as she watches a flipped Howard play with the microwave. Didn't really have working microwaves back home either.

"It's awesome though, I like it. I'm glad you like the present. I just figured, you know? How we met and all. And home and stuff. So where's my gift?" She prompts, grinning lopsidedly.

"Okay, yours is a bit weird, but..." He runs back over to the tree and grabs hers.

It's a small but heavy box. He hands it over to her with an expectant grin. "I'm kind of going to have to explain it."

Inside is a bullet necklace, only the tip of each bullet can be detached to reveal a double-A battery encased within.

She bounces a little on the couch while she waits and reaches out for the box immediately when he brings it over, ripping into the wrapping paper with gusto. She pauses when she opens it, and then snorts.

"This is awesome. I'm going to look like a fucking badass," She says as she pulls out the necklace. It doesn't occur to her to play with the bullets. "Man, that is an intense caliber..."

"I don't know shit about guns, I just got it because- look, check it out-" He reaches over and takes one of the bullets in hand before unscrewing the tip. "Fucking lifesavers, you know?"

She watched, and as he unscrewed the bullet her eyes widened.

"Holy shit!" She said, reaching out to take back the necklace and pull free the battery. "Do you know how impossible it is to find working batteries back home? You have to fucking bribe the army." She looked at it, grinning stupidly, before screwing it back into place and carefully slipping the necklace over her head.

Then, without any further ado, she through her arms around Howard and hugged him tightly.

"Man, I've seen people get shanked over batteries, I'm pretty sure I got a good idea." He grins despite their grim shared history and leans back to look at her. "That looks awesome on you. You look totally punk rock."

And then suddenly she's hugging him, and he isn't sure how to respond to that. He goes stiff as a board and doesn't hug back, swallowing his heart as it goes into overdrive. His brain has to tell his body that there's no danger, no threat.

She felt him tense - it was impossible to miss - and abruptly let him go, giving him an extremely apologetic look.

"Sorry, Howard. Not a hugger, huh? Probably... shouldn't have sprung that on you. I just really appreciate it. So, thanks."

"Sorry." His voice is a bit shaky. "It's just a personal space thing. Sorry."

He reaches out and pats get shoulder in an awkward attempt to tell her it's all good.

Well that wasn't awkward at all and Ellie tries to offer him a reassuring smile. "It's alright. I get it. Trust me."

She wets her lips and then shrugs. "Was a bit there where I couldn't uh... couldn't really let anyone touch me at all, you know? So I get it." She just really hopes that the reason he has space issues weren't the same as hers. The tries to break the mood by smiling wider. "But now I can't get enough hugs. You know. From people I like. People I don't?"

She makes an exaggerated motion of slitting her throat.

"Yeah. It's kind of like that." He nods. "I mean, I hear I can be real clingy, it just takes me a while, you know?"

You know? You know? Of course you know. There's an unspoken understanding between the two of them, little survivalist rats, like he and Eponine were. That makes his lungs feel watery.

"Did I tell you I almost shanked Cinderella when she leaned in and took my popcorn? Like, literally, pulled a knife on her and tried to stab her. I freaked."

Ellie can't help snort a laugh, because a) shanking someone over popcorn is something she can totally understand, and b) there was someone here that actually had the name Cinderella.

"Oh god. Well, she should know better than to steal a guy's popcorn," She pointed out, giving Howard a sympathetic smile. "But seriously, no worries Howard. You just let me know when you want hugs and I'll give you all the hugs you could want, and until then, I'll just supply the knives."

"I'm always a big fan of knives." When he smiles next, it's a warm, genuine one. "Anyway. Merry Christmas."

Ellie smiled back, fingertips aimlessly touching the bullets at her neck.

"Merry Christmas, Howard."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's the Season of Cold Making Warmth a Divine Intervention [Open]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject