thecapitol | We Are the Makers and the Breakers [Closed]

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We Are the Makers and the Breakers [Closed]

WHO| Maximus and Venus
WHAT| Some holiday mourning for a relationship that barely was and a relationship that wasn't.
WHEN| Before the wedding.
WHERE| District 3 Suite
WARNINGS| Mentions of psychiatric medication and family death. Probably drinking, at some point.

People try at Christmas. Venus appreciates that, she supposes.

Still, it's a holiday filled with the void of where her family isn't, a day stuffed with memories of assembly-stuffed stockings at Xavier's with her name misspelled, with her saying thank you but no thank you, she's much too old for that now. Of relatives who couldn't bear to see her in any other way sending Christmas cards summing up the year. Your cousins are getting so big, they ask about you all the time, but of course you understand why they can't see you in the state you're in... Of candy canes with her therapist's business card taped to them.

Teleporting to some beach in Bermuda to pretend it's June. Taking enough of her sleeping medication to spend eighteen hours of the twenty-fifth in bed. Missing, missing, missing her mother and father and the sound of her brothers fighting over who got to open their presents first.

The chill that's fallen in District Five - not a bitterness like last time, but a sort of awkwardness of unspoken thoughts and assumptions between her and Enjolras - hasn't helped. So she turns to District Three, instead. The lights on the tree sparkle to the beat of a glitch-hop Christmas carol. A little robot snowman greets her as she enters. She walks on by.

She knocks on Maximus' door, looking cheerful and flawless and unruffled, as she always does. As she's made such a career out of being that it is no longer even tangentially related to her inner state. She holds a piece of jerky in her hand to throw for the tiger.

"Hey." She bites the corner of her tongue. "Figured you'd be spending this holly jolly day alone too. Wanna see if there's a Starbucks or something wringing holiday pay out of its employees?"

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Maximus hadn't slept. Not really. Though how he found himself on the floor was a mystery, if that was true. He lay doubled over in the corner of his room. Every candle he'd bought while out with white was lit and dripping in this corner - his room turned into a shrine - with the two little figurines, his wife and son, resting between the slowly growing mountains of wax.

He's spent almost the entire night trying to beg their forgiveness.

His eyes were red, his throat was raw, and it took several minutes to collect himself off the floor. Ferox, who had been curled up around him rose at the same time, looking up mournfully at its master, and followed silently as he stepped to the door.

He opened it, and the stormclouds might as well have come with him, brewing in the air around him as he was completely unable to contain his bad temper in his face. (The avoxes had been avoiding his rooms all night.)

"I am not interested in company," He said bluntly, looking down at her.

"And I'm not interested in getting shot down again," she snaps with the sort of tone that can only be borne from rawness, the sort that needs to be wetted with clear plasma and tears.

She's a bit smaller than him, and certainly daintier, and has the fearlessness necessary to sidestep both Max and Ferox into the room. Ferox snarls, but his eyes are on the jerky, and Venus flicks it across the room.

"Merry Christmas, fluffball."

Usually the 'about to kill someone' murder glare was extremely effective on people, so Maximus was actively taken back by the fact that she brushed it off and stepped past him. He turned, glowering.

"Again?" He inquired in a gruff rumble as Ferox pounced on the jerky and tore into it with relish.

"What do you mean, again?" Since let's be honest he didn't want to talk at all but talking about someone else's issues was way more appealing than actually dealing with, or thinking about, his own.

"I'm way too sober to be answering that question right now." She plops down on his bed as if it's her own and as if there isn't a man-eating cat ripping up a rather small piece of meat right next to her. "I mean, unless you have sulking to do in the man cave, in which case, be my guest. I'm sure that'll be a really productive way to spend Christmas evening."

Venus rolls her eyes and shakes her head in a way that betrays that she has no such intention of leaving him in the man cave. She's lonely and hurting, and any rebuff at this point will be magnified a hundred times over.

While she speaks, one of the candles on the makeshift shrine burns so low that is begins to gutter and then burns out. He's done plenty of sulking, though he would never use that word.

"No," he said finally after a minute of deep thought, stiffening slightly when she climbs on the bed and all he can think of is who he had shared it with, mere days ago. "No, I have no reason to stay here. And more than enough reason to chase away my sobriety, if that is what you seek."

"Well, I'm a lightweight, so I have to get you at least a little drunk before I start on myself. Otherwise you're just going to lose all your respect for me."

She isn't sure how much respect that is, but he hasn't kicked her out yet. She tugs at the collar of her jacket and gets back up, as if too distracted to remember she sat down just a minute ago. "Let's hit the road. I'm game for Irish coffee if you are."

"I don't hold a man's insobriety against him, as long as he isn't meant to be working," Maximus said, a poor attempt at humour while humour felt like the farthest thing from what he was capable of.

He hesitates, his eyes falling back on the shrine, on the heart of his endless vigil, but he takes his cloak and throws it over his shoulders and follows her out.

He doesn't know what Irish coffee is (though at least he had some semblance of an idea of what coffee itself was, the world 'Irish' meant absolutely nothing to him), but he follows anyway, and after a few steps he almost feels like he's fleeing and wants to drag himself back. (For more endless apologies.) But he doesn't.

"I have no concept of what that is," He admits bluntly.

Venus wonders if it would be worthwhile to point out to Maximus that she's no man, but then remembers he's from an even earlier time than Enjolras, and she probably shouldn't antagonize him over that now. She doesn't really want to think about Enjolras right now. He's a welcome distraction from the fact that she murdered her entire family a few years ago, but not necessarily a pleasant one.

"It for when you want to be drinking but not actually look like you're drinking." She winks. "So you can stay respectable."

She gives Ferox a pat on the rump as she walks out the door, and her eyes follow Max's. "Don't worry. They're not going anywhere," she says, bereft of the cheer that filled her voice a mere moment ago, letting her gaze linger on the figurines.

"I know," He says firmly, turning his back on them and closing the door behind him.

The dead never went anywhere.

Being separated from them again by the door made him instantly regret leaving. As if stepping outside meant that he would be forced to face Wyatt again. Maximus had always been good at facing that which he didn't want to, but needed to, but those were always enemies. Always battles. Wyatt was neither, and yet he was more scared of facing him than he'd been of anything in a long time.

Forget anything happened.

What a simple way of asking the impossible.

He drew the cloak tighter around him and ducked his head as he made for the elevator.

"I'm agreeing to this on the assumption that we drink enough to allow ourselves at least a moment of forgetfulness. I'm not sure 'respectable' is something that is equally achieved."

"I'm down for forgetfulness."

She wants to fill the elevator with chatter, but can't find the words to chase away the heavy loss that hangs between them. She's grateful he only lives on the third floor.

The snow outside is spiteful, biting at their cheeks as if angry it can't get past their coats to the more tender parts of their bodies. Venus leans over and grabs a handful of snow in her ungloved hand as she walks, crumpling it as she points at the street they should go down.

"I hate this season, honestly. It's like they're trying to make us feel bad for being alone."

His fists ball into the thick fur of his cloak, his head ducking to brace against the icy wind as he turns to follow where she is pointing.

The streets were nearly empty - everyone celebrating with their loved ones in the warmth. Only the lonely souls were on the streets, tonight. Only the lost.

"I wouldn't know." He said, flatly. "I never reached the winter after they died. Not until this place. Not until the ice."

"Well, I know. And it's basically the Lonely Show." She reaches over and gives Max's bicep a squeeze through his jacket, dragging him a bit faster down the street.

"First time I tried to off myself, honestly, before I found a way to do it that got me paid at the same time." The wry grin that accompanies that grim statement could be used for a toothpaste commercial if the cold hadn't chapped a split into her bottom lip.

He shouldn't have been alone. He hadn't thought he would be, could still almost feel Wyatt''s arms around him. That thought, however, only made him feel worse, and he nearly flinched from her touch to his arm.

"I wouldn't have survived," he said quietly. "You know I was a gladiator, but not, I think, how I became one. I found them, and I left myself to die with them." He let out a hard breath that frosted the hair upon his lips. "They found me lying on the shallow graves I'd dug for them. I was barely alive when they took me for a slave."

"Weird that the thing that saved our lives is risking them for the entertainment of others, huh?"

It's strange, this. Talking about their lives now to avoid talking about loss. They walk into a cafe, where some beleaguered soul is tending the bar alone.

"Two coffees in the big mug, please. Cream and sugar." Venus raises her fingers to count it off before settling down at a table. "But you know what? Fuck it. Fuck God and all'a his angels. I'm having a merry fucking Christmas if it kills me."

"That wasn't what saved my life," Maximus murmured, almost half to himself as they stepped into the coffee shop. Thinking of Wyatt.

He pulled the great cloak from his shoulders, the rough black fur matted with snow as he brushed it from his hair.

"Io, Saturnalia!" Maximus said, the closest thing to a Merry Christmas that he had, without thinking of Wyatt. (He had to stop thinking about him, the man had demanded it.)

He set the cloak over the back of his chair and it seemed to raise its stature, making it into something of a throne before he seated himself down upon it.

The barista, now delivering hot coffees, gives Max a perplexed look before muttering 'happy holidays' and skittering off. Even though Max and Venus aren't cuffed Tributes, they're still intimidating - a Victor and one of the most prolific killers of the last two Arenas.

"What did?" Venus pulls a flask from inside her coat and pours it into both of their cups. "Because I mean, if you have the secret to not wanting to die of guilt, I'm all ears."

Whatever relaxation had slipped into his expression immediately disappeared.

"It doesn't matter anymore," He said, his brows furrowing as he watched her spike their drinks. He waited until she had finished with his before pulling it to his lips and taking a sip. He made a quick face and put it back down. Too hot, yet.

"I didn't deserve it in the first place, and now it is done."

She purses her lips and shakes her head at him. "Well, now that you're being cryptic, you have to spill. You know, bleed the pus out, make it feel better. I'm a great listener."

She really isn't, and honestly, she probably shouldn't be bringing up pus when they're settling down to drink.

He looks at her. Just looks, with that piercing blue gaze that he gives when he's quite sure that he does not want to do whatever he was just told to do, though the mention of pus would never turn his stomach.

(It's a lot less effective, when you've seen as much as he has.)

"I doubt it would help," He says, flatly, before pulling the coffee back up to his lips and gulping some down, even though it burned his tongue. (He almost preferred it that way.) "The point is, we've both survived this long. Perhaps we can continue to defy the gods."

He was fairly certain the guilt would never be escaped.

Edited (tenses....) 2013-12-31 05:40 (UTC)

Venus meets his gaze back, eyes as dark and unyielding as the commas on a page, demanding a pause.

"You know, this whole thing about being friends that I'm trying to do, with the teddy bears and all? That involved you not being a jerk." She reaches forward and wraps her hand around his on the mug handle.

There's a flash of defiance somewhere deep in his eyes but it is quickly smothered by shame. He drops his gaze, and his shoulders.

He didn't need to know the exact definition of jerk to know that she was right.

"... My apologies." He said gruffly. "I am still smarting from arguments left incomplete. You do not deserve to have them drawn out onto you."

"Well, you've put them in the air now. What's on your mind?" She blows on her coffee, sending a waft of steam over. It's a bit of an incorporeal sort of olive branch, and it dissipates well before it reaches him.

"Look. As someone who has arguments here, it's better to complete them fast, before the Capitol decides to take advantage of the opening."

It occurred to him, at that very moment, that he hadn't actually spoken of his brief - what? affair? - with Wyatt to a single living soul. Sure, he'd whispered more apologies than he could count, but only to the dead. He frowned, his brows furrowing as he stared into his cup before taking another long drink.

"The argument is as complete as it could be made, even if I have no said my piece. It has been made very clear that I will not be given a chance to." He paused, breathed in deep, and let it out.

Then he met Venus' eye.

"I'm sure you cannot be completely oblivious to the rumours."

"Picking up on gossip is kind of second-nature to me. Hell, half the time it's about me." Which is part of why she's here drinking spiked coffee. She props her feet up on an abandoned chair and brushes some drops of melted snow from her hairline. "So. You and Wyatt Earp."

She twitches her feet inside her boots to the rhythm of the jazzy rendition of some crappy Christmas song floating overhead.

"There's never no chance to say your piece to someone until they're dead, you know. Even if they don't want to hear it." She blows on her coffee again and stirs it. "You probably shouldn't be going to bed mad, I mean, when odds are either of you could die and not come back soon. That'd be like, guilt squared."

He was more grateful than he could have every possibly said that all it took for her to understand the situation boiled down to a simple phrase. So. You and Wyatt Earp. He did not think he had it in him to explain, so the fact that he doesn't have to was an immense weight lifted.

"My piece doesn't matter. He knows my obligations. He knows that I-- He knows what happened to my family. The fact that I forgot myself is beside the point, once he was reminded of my obligations he decided it was best to withdraw himself from my company."

Those last few words weren't bitter. Nope. Not at all.

god i am so sorry :| he is a miserable bastard atm

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[cw: suicide talk]

[cw: suicide talk]

Re: [cw: suicide talk]

[cw: suicide talk]

Re: [cw: suicide talk]

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