thecapitol | I'm Looking for the Tower of Learning [Closed]

Entry tags:

I'm Looking for the Tower of Learning [Closed]

WHO| Venus and Enjolras
WHAT| Venus teaches Enjolras how to fight.
WHEN| Prior to the crowning.
WHERE| Training Center
WARNINGS| my ship tho. also mentions of bugs and nightmares.

She isn't new to nightmares. When she was little, the insects her older cousin put on her would crawl back out of her skin in her dreams, skittering and slithering across her belly button and under her shirt. When she was a teenager, the world was on fire, and she kept screaming and beating her little brothers because they wouldn't hear her, and she'd crack their faces open and reveal egg yolks on the inside. Then there were, of course, your run of the mill dreams about showing up to a red carpet event in the wrong clothes, of forgetting her bookbag to school and having to go on futile, circular quests to retrieve it.

The flavor of them has changed. There's a sort of dread to them now that isn't tied into grief, but a vague sense of loss, like grabbing through fog and finding nothing. Foreboding for the future, rather than sorrow for the past. She wakes up in the morning and there are names on her lips, and she listens at people's doors for the sounds of sleeping to ease the strange anxiety in her bones. Kankri snores a little. Enjolras is awake, and she can hear the rustle of pages in his room, but she doesn't knock or enter.

It soothes her bones but not her mind, so she goes to the Training Center. Dressed in a midriff top and spandex pants, she stretches on the mats, warms up with the acrobatic bars. She wraps her hands and puts chalk on them that's still there when she takes to the more combat-oriented exercises. It's still early enough that there's no one besides her there to hear the smacking of her kicks against a dummy, of the elbow she miscalculates on just enough to give herself rug-burn.

She pauses for a moment, breathing heavy but not yet sweating, and goes to the supplies rack to put a brace on her arm.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She grins. The toaster will have to do without its morning serenade.

"I'd like that. You know how I feel about oatmeal and cinnamon rolls." Tastebuds are possibly her favorite part of a human body, something she didn't even remember to miss in her many years of heartbroken wandering as a cloud of dark matter (as a ghost, as she now thinks of it), and sugar is a pleasure she tries to mete out rather than gorge on with varying success.

They go through a few more practices with the hook, then the jab going into the hook, and then a few blocks. By the time they're done even she's feeling tired, and has worked up a rather unladylike sweat. An Avox comes by with fresh shirts for them, but Venus has one for her packed into her gym bag.

"Can you still walk?" She holds her arm out to link with his. Not as support, but as companionship.

It’s almost automatic to take her arm, even if their present arrangement feels superficially unnatural. Her arm should be in his, not the other way around, but intellectually he knows it doesn’t really matter. It’s all pride and illogical tradition, conditioning with any need for the conditions to be met, and so he lets it go, falling in easily beside her.

“I’ll be fine.” It’s a lie rather than a fiction, because he’s already hurting a little, and he’ll hurt more later today, let alone tomorrow. Enjolras can feel the strain in his arms, and the dull ache centering over his shoulder blades, but that he is too proud to not ignore even if he can see the ridiculousness of it.

“You like cinnamon rolls, but have you tried French toast?” The inquiry is light, intended to segue the conversation away from talk of his apparent deficiencies. He doesn’t know the real story with Venus’ physical situation, but he has caught on that the foods they have in Panem are foods with which she’s unfamiliar, for the most part, and that she has a thing for sweets. For his part, Enjolras is content enough to exist on bread, wine, coffee, fruit, and maybe a little bit of protein when he remembers it. He’s heard the lines about that being nutritionally insufficient from the stylists and escorts, but old habits are hard to break. “It is made with cinnamon and vanilla. I think you would like it, even if it is horrible for you."

"French toast? I haven't had that since I was a kid." But she remembers liking it, and the idea fills her with anticipation. She's felt compelled lately to reconnect with her childhood rather than erase it, and she likes to attribute it to being unable to visit her family's final resting place. She has to hold onto a time before mutation (and stardom, and Panem), even as the lure of the past starts to fade in the light of her new connections, her relationships that tether her to this time and place. The friends she's made here, and the friend and lover who's linked his arm with hers.

"I die every two months, I don't think I have to worry about death by cinnamon toast."

She says that lightly, but seriousness follows in its wake, like a sort of punctuation. They may have spent the entire morning shadowboxing in anticipation of having to, at some point soon or later, defend their lives, but it feels for an instant as if she's shattered a pleasant illusion. She tries to usher them back to levity.

"So, diner instead of a cafe, then? Or a restaurant?"

"I do not think it matters," he replies flatly, and it's a struggle not to latch onto her grim flippancy from a moment ago. It's too early, in his opinion, for such discussions, even if the way she so casually skirts around it does nothing for his mood.

"Most cafés will have it, the same most diners and restaurants." And the truth is that he prefers the mood of a café to that of a diner, if only for its familiarity.

They fall into step easily along side each other, breaking apart only momentarily to step into the elevator as it arrives. The behavior, like her earlier comment, is deceptively mundane, the illusion of domesticity so complete he can almost, for a moment, forget that she means what she'd literally. "We should change if we're to go out. I would not wish you embarrassed to be seen with me."

It's true, there are large, wet patches where he's sweat through his shirt, and Enjolras, being of a particular era, would've felt inappropriate in public anyway, dressed as he is. But, if he's to be honest with himself, he's also being flippant and using the circumstances to avoid dwelling too heavily on everything lurking just ahead of them. It isn't particularly brave or noble, but he's willing to cling to the illusion for the moment.

"Cafe it is, then. Someplace quiet with comfy chairs." He's going to need it, with that workout he had. She may too.

She looks over at his sweat-soaked shirt with a certain amount of admiration - at the very least the effort he put in is obvious - but as someone who knows full well the importance of a public face, she doesn't say that she just might prefer him this way.

"Pretty sure 'embarrassed' isn't the word I use for being on your arm, but I should put on makeup, anyway." It's not as if she's insecure about how she looks without it, or that she thinks Enjolras is bewitched by the magic of mascara and foundation, but she doesn't want to broadcast the vulnerability of her insomnia to the entirety of the Capitol on the street, and the puffiness under her eyes betrays her limited hours resting. "Just don't keep me waiting while you put on your thirty-six layers of clothes."

In the elevator, she squeezes his hand and imagines that she will never let it go.

The pressure of her hand in his is delightfully familiar. They're new at this, it's true, but not so new that habits have yet to form, both consciously and unconsciously. They can exist in silence together without having to fill the void with needless chatter. It's trusting, rather than awkward, the subtle intake of breath and metallic whir as the elevator glides its way up to their floor, comfortable rather than pensive. Any awkwardness is a pleasant sort, a buzz of anticipation with which he's become more than familiar in regards to her. At first Enjolras disdained the sensation, now he's come to expect it, and even miss the feeling when she's not around. The rush is worth whatever superficial uncertainty accompanies it.

"It is hardly my fault that society has lost the art of proper dress." He ventures the joke casually as they arrive at their floor. The District 5 suite is, for once, blessedly quiet around them. "And if you think that I am bad, you should have seen Courfeyrac when he insisted on wearing two waistcoats."

She snorts, and it's a genuine, happy sound amidst her usually controlled and graceful laugh. It's honest. "Did he think that he would woo more ladies with a double-waistcoat?"

Granted, not like Courfeyrac needs the help. The boyish enthusiasm and charisma generally seem to do him just fine.

Venus lets Enjolras' hand go and retreats to her room, emerging fresh-faced and waiting for him on the couch. From the lounge she can hear Lindsey McDonald's snoring, hear Initiate muttering to himself and bustling about in his room. Before everyone wakes up and starts chattering and bickering and living, District Five is rather nice, and she feels as if she's stolen a nugget of peace.

"I bet everyone tells you you're so handsome," she teases when Enj returns, coming up to adjust his perfectly-fine collar. It's mostly just an excuse to get close, the artificial explanation fueling the boldness they still seem to need to press their boundaries. "Cafe?"

"It was a fairly popular fashion for a time." The reply floats after her as she walks away. Enjolras follows suit, disappearing into his own room to find a fresh pair of slacks, shirt, and cardigan. There's enough early morning light filtering into his room from the window that he doesn't need to reach for the artificial lamps. It bathes everything in shades of blue and gold, and makes the red sweater he tugs on seem orange in the shadows. The sounds, or lack thereof, in District 5 are pleasant before everyone's woken up to ruin it all, and he thinks perhaps Venus might be onto something with this morning routine thing. If nothing else, it would be worth it to wake up earlier and appreciate the quiet every so often.

The proximity when they're reunited is daring, perhaps but not unwelcome. "Cafe," he agrees lightly, reaching up to collect her hand in his, hazarding a kiss on her knuckles before dropping their hands between them so that they can walk.

"How far do you feel like walking?" Enjolras' question comes with a suitably inquisitive expression. In truth, he doesn't feel like walking much at all after that workout. He's determined, however, to show a brave face.

"Not far. I'm not wearing the shoes for that." She's switched from tennis shoes to sandals, not only a little because she wants to separate herself from how she feels when she works out. If she knows she's given him an out, she doesn't show it. She takes her hand from him as if it's a bouquet of flowers, only to link it back with his on their way down the elevator.

The streets outside are busier, and Capitol citizens roll down their car windows as they pass, ogling the new couple that the tabloids predicted nigh on eight months ago. For a woman who's spent the last several years in the spotlight, it's only now that Venus feels a sense of territorial peevishness at having something private intruded on - despite having previously invited the press into their little not-romance with her shenanigans with the statue.

Now that it's real, she doesn't like the reminders that it could be fake. After someone in a car starts honking at them and taking pictures, she lets go of his hand, a slight flush in her cheeks.

"Ignore them," he says with a grim sort of authority. They've come full circle on this, it seems. After all, only a few months ago, he'd have behaved exactly as she's doing now. Things have changed, however, and the possibility that all this, in a different set of circumstances, could be fake, doesn't scare him nearly as much as the idea of denying what is real when they know it is. They make it a few more paces, past another car and another catcall, before he puts an arm around her shoulders. He means the gesture to be comforting, but it's stilted, almost aggressive. It shouldn't matter to them what these people think. They don't have the right to think anything about them at all.

Fortunately, soon enough they make the corner onto a side street. It's quieter, and the thinner traffic makes for less people gawking at them. Tentatively, he hazards a look over to her. It's still hard for Enjolras to tell just how she's interpreting everything between them, even now that they're better at at least talking things out for the most part.

"We cannot stop people here from saying whatever it is they will say, but we do not have to give them the gratification of our attention." Which is a direct flip form his position a few months earlier, and still far easier said than done, but it's all various shades of relative anyway. "And, I would rather they misinterpreted this than that we let them keep us from each other."

She watches her feet. It's uncharacteristic for someone who usually walks with such confidence, an almost supernatural sense of self-possession. And yet. And yet.

"It's never mattered before." Not the relationship, but what people thought of her - shallow, vain, a slut, a talentless floozy, an opportunistic ambulance-chaser - it never mattered. It wasn't from any sort of self-assurance so much as no great investment in protecting anything, because there was nothing worth defending, to her.

She raises her eyes to meet his, smiling softly. "I didn't say they're keeping us from each other. I'm just- I'm new at this too, you know. You know that."

And yet new as she is, she does like how her body seems to fit in his, the curve of the back of her neck folding under the crook of his arm like a hip-bone into a socket. She wraps her arm around his back and waist, imagining defiance as a wire inside her body, star-shaped, running through each limb and down to the fingertips.

"This place?"

"This is fine." It's a quiet café. Not their usual, now that he and his friends have apparently ruined that for them, but it will do. Time will make a new place their usual and that will be fine. They break apart so that he can hold the door for her, and once inside, they find a quiet table somewhere away from the window so that they can perhaps pretend to some privacy again for a moment.

The minute they're settled in, he reaches for her hand across the table. The quiet between them seems vulnerable, and, while the physical contact won't do anything to explain away their respective insecurities, it's comforting nonetheless.

"I was not hungry when we left, but now that we are here, I feel I could eat at least one of everything on the menu." The smalltalk is awkward, less stilted than his attempts at reassurance if only because he's telling the truth. The workout has suddenly caught up to him, and Enjolras can feel it in just how drained and tender he feels. "Coffee first, I think."

It's become so typical now for them to hold hands over the table - something that started before they even realized what was starting - that Venus pushes a breakfast menu and a fork aside to make room for their little union even before he reaches for her. She folds his hand into hers and rubs over his knuckles with her thumb.

"Protein. It's good after a workout, keeps you from getting too hungry later. If they have an egg sandwich here, you should go for that." The cafe is a strange marriage of restaurant and coffeeshop - waitresses and menus but other than that, relative privacy, which is a good salve for the surprising injury of the attention they received earlier. "But me, I get fruit cravings after exercise."

Well, and most times. The novelty of fructose has yet to wear off. "But yeah, coffee first."

When the waitress comes by, Venus orders a drink so complicated and divorced from the original concept of coffee that a Starbucks barista might be baffled.

"Fruits do not contain protein." It's not phrased as a question, necessarily, but the intonation makes up for it. There's an a priori sort of knowledge to food within most sentient beings, and after enduring one Arena, Enjolras had done his best to refine that understanding, but the modern, technical terms are still sometimes puzzling to him.

He orders coffee in its simplest form, with an added request for milk and sugar. When the waitress offers an artificial sweetener in its place, it's hard not to turn his nose up at the suggestion. The coffee in Panem is thinner than the coffee in Paris anyway. He can see no good in wrecking it more with modern complications.

Which is, as a point of fact, exactly what Venus seems determined to do.

As the waitress scribbles down her order, Enjolras gives his lover's hand a light squeeze. It's too firm to be teasing, really, and holds the promise of a good natured admonishment, a display of tough love. It's only the slight upturn to his lips that gives his sever expression away. "If I am not mistaken, the word caramel was somewhere in all of that. I may have misheard, however."

"It's a triple-shot half-sweet non-fat caramel macchiato with soy milk, extra whip and a dolce drizzle." Where his smile is a gentle uptick, hers is a grin, cheeky and full of teeth. It's as if a spark from his flint starts a blaze from her dry tinder. "So I like a little coffee in my candy. So sue me."

And so again opens the teasing and chiding that's become the training wheels of their relationship, the safe haven they can learn to take risks in. Breakfast is brought out and with their eyes bigger than their stomachs, they end up ordering too much and having serious concerns about whether boxed foods will just get thrown out by the Avoxes during the daily fridge-clean. That one quibble aside, breakfast is pleasant, and Venus hopes that it repeats itself in the future enough to become unmemorable.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm Looking for the Tower of Learning [Closed]

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

/wrap