thecapitol | (no subject)

Who| Everyone, pretty much. Particularly Secret Santa people and those Creuntus is fucking with.
What| Holiday times!
Where| The Tribute Training center
When| The whole week, but Creuntus' gifts arrive today.
Warnings/Notes| none atm. Please add any in thread headers. Also, for secret santa, if you are the giver start a thread with your giftee's name (unless you two have worked something else out between you). You can use the District threads below, or choose a different setting of your own.

Every floor public space is dripping with holiday decorations.

The decorations are themed, ridiculously so. Every surface is covered, and a table sits proudly full of holiday treats and spirits, kept stocked constantly by the avoxes. Cheerful music plays softly throughout the whole building, though luckily for everyone the Capitol doesn't really know what Christmas carols are.

Those with secret santa's have a cheery, passive-aggressive note reminding them not to disappoint anyone and ruin their holiday.

Those that have expressed a want for some object from home will find a box on their bed sometime during the day, with a merry holiday greeting from Cruentus. Inside they will find the object of their desire, or something similar, crafted from their words.

In blown glass. Pretty, decorative, utterly useless.

Bert's guns, Punchy's goggles, Sigma's music box, Maximus' leg, Mindy's knife, Terezi's dragon cane...on and on, as many gifts as Creuntus could find out. Those that were with them when they were pulled are more perfect replicas, those that they have just described obviously have an artistic touch to them.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"They don't mean anythin', Max," Wyatt said again, rougher, as he struggled to understand and accept Max's upset.

That this wasn't about the two of them, as the three of them. Max and his family. A husband and his wife, a father and his son.

Was is regret, that had Max pushing him away? Shame? Fear?

They all hurt. Especially knowing they were all deserved.

"It's jus' a gift from a sponsor who don't know any better. I'm sure they didn't mean--"

"It doesn't matter what they meant," Maximus snapped, just a little cold, just a little harsh, but he was still holding himself back.

"Regardless of what they meant, they still mean something. My family still means something!" Each sentence saw his voice grow a little louder, his throat a little rougher, and the edge in his eyes sharper.

Wyatt stiffened, shoulders and jaw tightening. Every sentence felt more like an accusation. Like blame. And he didn't know how to fight against it, wasn't even sure he should.

Even if the sponsor hadn't meant it, it wasn't like Wyatt had been sparing a lot of thought for them - those ghosts Max carried around with him. He'd been so happy, so blinded by what he'd been feeling.... He hadn't even put together why Max had been withdrawing, why he'd stopped speaking when they were together.

"Nobody's sayin' they don't." Max got louder, and Wyatt got softer, his drawl thicker. "I'm not sayin' they don't. I jus--"

"Just what?" Maximus snapped, "Just what, Wyatt? Not a soul in this world cares about them, or what happened to them. To everyone else they may as well be shadows and dust, and I--"

Here his throat nearly closed up, but the rage and the pain tore through it.

"And here I am, and I never -- I never even managed to avenge them and I am, doing everything in my power to dishonour their memory--"

A dishonor.

It echoed in the room, in Wyatt's ears. In his chest as everything in him seemed to suddenly drop away.

That's what it was to Max. What they were. What he was.

The truth of it hit him like sucker punch; a sharp, cold jab between the ribs, and he arched away in surprise, in hurt. His mouth dropped open, a fraction before he could catch it, before he snapped it closed again, hard and fast enough to click his teeth, to feel an ache in his molars.

He might have told him that it wasn't his fault, reminded him that he hadn't asked for the Capitol to take him, but he couldn't. Couldn't get the words out, couldn't drag them up from the depths of his gut where everything had settled.

Remembering to breath was challenge enough.

"I'm sorry, Max." The words were dull when they came. Rough and low, strangled as he forced them out. "I said I'd never hurt ya, an' I didn't realize I already was."

He looked away, blinking. His eyes landed on the scattered pair on the bed again and he leaned to pick himself up, that little miniature Wyatt. He stared at it for a moment, thumb rubbing over the tiny features, then he hid it away behind the curtain of his fingers. The wood hard in his fist as he swallowed thickly.

"Forget anythin' happened." He looked back, eyes closed off, cold and distant. "I'll do the same an'... I'll make sure it doesn't happen again."

And he turned away, determined to see that through, almost clipping the dresser as he crossed for the door. Letting himself out.

Edited 2013-12-27 02:30 (UTC)

It was the look on Wyatt's face that hit him first, that caught the words in his throat and gave the silence necessary for the man to speak. The rage wasn't quelled, nor the despair - instead, they were only fed, because he watched himself destroy the only thing he had left and could do nothing.

"Wyatt--"

The door slammed closed.

"Wyatt!" He roared after him. But there was nothing but the ring of his own roar against the walls. Ferox, who had been curled up in a corner asleep, now woke with a start, his ears flattening back against his head.

He drew in his breath incredibly hard, his fist balled tightly enough at his sides that his short cropped nails drew blood in his palm. He reached out and grabbed for the lone figure at the bed and threw it at the door, causing it to smack loudly against it and go bouncing off across the floor.

Forget anythin' happened, Wyatt had said. As if Maximus' most potent problem was the fact that he was so unable to forget.

The ghosts in his mind didn't need to be solely made of the dead.

Edited 2013-12-27 06:08 (UTC)