thecapitol | closed;

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WHO| Wallander, Penny and Katurian
WHAT| Peacekeepers shooting the shit
WHEN| Before the crowning
WHERE| Peacekeeper HQ
WARNINGS| probably penny and katurian being creepy and wallander being depressed as usual

Wallander sighed, as he usually did, when he stepped into the elevator and rode it up to his office on the 12th floor. He jaw hurt, from where Joel had punched it the night before, and he'd spent nearly the entire morning with the paperwork making sure that Joel didn't get in trouble for it. It had been his fault, really, and he could hardly blame the man for punching him after a few beers and more than a few mixed emotions. He rubbed his fingers over the bruise, working his jaw to make sure it didn't click, barely even registering each 'ding!' the elevator made as it traveled upwards.

He stepped out, blinking as he walked under the dim office light, past the cubicles full of interns, pausing at one that belonged to a vaguely attractive woman who was at least ten years older than his daughter. "Anything new for me this morning?" He asked, trying to smile and forgetting that it hurt, so the smile turned quickly into a grimace. The Intern shook her head, told him that everyone was just concentrating on getting ready for the crowning. He nodded, giving up completely on whatever brief flirtation he was hoping to accomplish, fiddling with his wedding ring as he walked towards his office.

"Back to work," He murmured at a couple gossiping outside his door, opening it as he stepped inside. He left the door open. He always did. People went in and out often enough to make closing it useless. And if they were preparing for a crowning, he expected more visits than usual.

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Katurian only visited Peacekeeper Headquarters when it was absolutely necessary. The pastel color of the walls sickened him. The pleasantly soft carpet always felt like it was inexplicably driving little fibers through his shoes and into his feet. In the winter, the hum of the heating system tickled his throat, and in the winter, the sigh of the air conditioner drove him mad. He hated the place, and so every object in it soaked up his hatred like a sponge.

Katurian only visited Peacekeeper Headquarters when it was absolutely necessary, which meant that Katurian only visited Peacekeeper Headquarters when he needed to work.

The torture this afternoon had been straight-forward. Routine. Katurian cracked the joints in his fingers as he padded down the hallway, remnants of the drug still hanging his system and leaving his mouth with a curled half-smirk. People moved out of his way and hushed their conversations in his presence, which was good. With the drug, his hatred of this place morphed into possessiveness.

Wallander's bruise caught his eye. He could see it as he passed the open door -- or started to pass the open door, anyway. He stopped near the frame and stared into the room, the man, the broken blood vessels, like a child entranced with a television.

He said nothing.

Were Penny aware that Katurian's feelings were possessive, she would have had him killed by now. Peacekeeper Headquarters are her territory, moreso than any place besides her home. Her signature is imprinted on every passive-aggressive memo, every hour of unpaid overtime, every arbitrary rule about font-size. She rules with an iron fist and a microscope.

She moves through the building as if she's a float at a parade. People make way for her and they clean up her messes. Interns fall silent. Even the coffeemaker seems to burble more quietly when she's around, as if it's politely trying to hide its disgust. She prowls, sometimes, looking into cubicles just to unsettle her employees.

She passes Katurian and reaches over, rubbing a hand along the back of Wallander's neck.

"Who hurt you, Wallander?" She asks. It's sickly-sweet but laced with a threat. She doesn't like people touching her things.

He'd looked up, when Katurian stopped at the door. "Katur--" he'd started, the man's name on his lips, a gesture to beckon him inside, before he watched Penny push past him.

It was a particular talent of hers, he thought to himself, that she was still able to make the hair raise on the back of his neck after all these years. The hand on his skin helped - sending goose pimples down his spine.

But he knew much better than to complain.

"Oh, just me being too clumsy after one too many drinks," He mumbled. It had taken a lot of paperwork to make sure that the evidence would back him up, with that, but he knew that telling Penny Joel had hit him was tantamount to asking for the man to be tortured. "Long day, and then I went and made it longer."

Katurian could feel Penny before she arrived. He could recognize the sound of her footsteps. The distant sound of her breath. When Penny approached, she would always touch his neck. She passed by him without doing anything, and it was like a lock had failed to latch or the sun had failed to rise.

He leaned backwards against the doorframe.

He continued to study the bruise, those reds and blacks and purples, clinging to details to distract himself. He imagined all the ways those colors could manifest. Clumsy after too many drinks. (Went to bed and bumped his head.) Does that fit the story?

The trick, Penny realized so long ago, was not to cause pain. It was to take it away. She learned it from studying opiates, actually, not too far removed from the drugs Katurian uses to keep his brain inside his skin. Force someone to fall in love with pain and its absence is keener than any blade; force someone to cry for mercy and the delivery is too much to handle. They are more comfortable in their misery.

She has learned to take advantage of Katurian's addict nature, and to force him through the occasional withdrawal. Because she can.

"Are you really such a clumsy man, Kurt?" Her hand travels down Wallander's neck, smooth hands over his collarbone before her fingers flutter away and she starts to pick through the belongings on his desk. "Perhaps we have you in the wrong department. You'd be better off with perpetrators who are already restrained."

"It won't happen again," He assures her firmly, assured both of them, letting himself breathe once her fingers disappeared from his skin. He glances over at Katurian, silent as the grave as he watched the moment play out.

"It was a moment of weakness, and I've learned my lesson."

Joel wouldn't get a second shot. Wallander had paid enough to give him this first one.

"Moments of weakness," she purrs as Katurian slips away. It's not that she isn't arrogant enough to say she wouldn't know what that's like, it's that she expects it goes without saying.

"And what is it that drives you to drink? Surely you can't be unhappy working here."

Of course no one is happy here. Penny makes sure to rule with an iron fist, demanding overtime, demanding loyalty. And, naturally, demanding that no one musters up the courage to complain.

"I would never be unhappy with my workplace," He said, his voice stiff. He isn't good at lying, but he knows better than to tell the truth.

"The work, on the other hand... The tributes can be... difficult." That was putting it mildly, and on record. She'd be able to see just how many of them spoke so bitterly to him. "I'm not- I just like to relax, sometimes. After a long day. I know my limits, usually. Today was a mistake."

"Any Tributes in particular?"

Something flashes in Penny's eyes, her mouth twitching like that of a cat that's seen movement in the grass. She is at times an anaconda, at others a wild dog.

"Do I need to make my presence known to keep them from harassing my employees?"

"None that particularly stand out," He said, covering up the careful avoidance with a bemused smirk. "None more than I expected, and nothing you need to worry about. Some of them just really don't understand anything of what is happening to them, at the moment." Not a lie - it was true enough, but it was the ones who did understand what was happening that were the problem.

"If I have to explain what a toilet is one more time..."

"Primitive ingrates. Even District Seven had proper plumbing." Penny's voice careens between a purr and a snarl. She starts to shuffle through some of Wallander's papers.

"I would have killed to be in their shoes as a child, and yet all they do is cry and demand to go home." She sighs. "At least it keeps us busy."

He relaxed, slightly, though was careful not to let it show outwardly. It was always a careful balancing act, with Penny, but appealing to her sense of superiority tended to work.

"They don't understand how lucky they are," Wallander agreed with a nod, continuing to attempt to pacify her. "Don't even have to take the risks that we would have, but reap all the reward."

"More than just a reward. We practically revere them as gods. And for what? They don't even have to survive anymore to be our beloved pets."

Penny seems to have worked herself up into a fuming rage already.

Wallander offered her a sympathetic smile.

"Isn't that what half the populace likes about them, these days?" He asked gently, in a very very careful effort to help cool her down. A furious Penny never meant any good for anyone.

"They'll never be really worthy, I know, but it helps keep people quiet and mollified, knowing they'll be able to keep watching their favourites."

"Our people have better things to idolize." Penny means herself, obviously, and there's something sour about the way she says 'our'. She may indulge with the Capitol but she will never be one of them.

She'll be eternally above them.

"Anyway. Make sure that none of them step out of line. I'll be evaluating your performance carefully."

It was a distinction that Wallander understood well. He was even less of the capitol than Penny was - it was common, when many of the peacekeepers came from the districts.

He just still believed himself lesser, rather than greater.

He nodded.

"Of course. I'll keep you updated on my progress."

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