thecapitol | Tell Me I'm Gonna Be Alright [Open]

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Tell Me I'm Gonna Be Alright [Open]

WHO| Howard and OPEN
WHAT| Binge-eating is a public sport.
WHERE| Below Timberline
WHEN| A few days after the rave.
WARNINGS| None yet.

It was a bad idea to give Howard a credit card. At least, unless the Gamemakers intended for him to get himself into ridiculous amounts of debt in record time eating out, which they probably did. As soon as he found a restaurant and the fact that the credit card apparently meant 'infinite money' to him, his mind was set on milking it for all it's worth.

Which is, at the moment, a few plates and some doggie boxes full of food to take home. It doesn't matter that there's foods in the suites. For the moment, he's living in the land of plenty, and he's going to take every opportunity he can to enjoy it. His stomach perpetually aches and cramps with the feeling of being too full, but after too many months of brutal starvation, he'll take that feeling over hunger. After two plates he's even managed to stop eating with his hands and go back to using silverware, although he still brings each plate close to him as if certain the other patrons are going to try and take it from him.

He just wishes people would stop staring at him. He knows it's inevitable, he's a tribute, and while he isn't one who did very well he did bash someone's head in. Every time they look at him, he's reminded of that. He tells himself that Lottie's alive and death isn't real in the arena, but just the idea of it makes the otherwise delicious food seem tasteless.

"There is a limit on this card, you know," someone says as they ring it up for another plate.

"Shut up," he says in return.

And when there's another full plate in front of him he starts on that, too, the taste on his tongue reminding him that here in the Capitol, he's safe. In this place, the bad things are temporary inconveniences until you come back to this life of luxury. He's going to be okay.

Another forkful, he's going to be okay.

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"Puke?"

She swallows, trying to breathe slowly, in and out.

"I wish I could just be good. But there are a lot of bad people here; perhaps this is why we are chosen. Perhaps it isn't heaven, but hell, to feed us food to make us sick and dress us as whores and make us kill?"

"Throw up. Um, vomit. Whatever."

He shakes his head. "If this is Hell, I'm okay with it. We'll slow down on eating eventually, and dying...I guess it's not too bad if you're not afraid of it."

"I am not afraid. I was to die in France; Papa would have, or his gang. And if they did not, cramps and cold and no food would do it. I am not AFRAID to die - but I do not want to do it over and over. When that man stuck his knife in my throat - all for a loaf of bread... No. This I do not want again. Especially for the citizens to laugh at me."

"You want my opinion?" She hasn't asked for it, but Howard's going to give it anyway. "Citizens laughing at us isn't worth worrying about. I'd say buh-bye to my pride before I'd die for real."

Her pride is all Eponine has. And it is something she would not give up for anything. It is her face, her front, when things are bad. It's what gets her into trouble at home. It is what makes her her. She will show people that though she might be scum, she does things on her own terms.

"I will not be laughed at and I will not be controlled. I think we will never agree, M'sieur."

"That's okay. I don't need to agree with everyone I talk to." He taps his credit card on the counter. "I should go back to the suites and like. Shower."

He could shower all day, honestly.

"Shower... Yes. I like showers. I am not going back though; my stylist wants me to try on horrible clothes. They are not even clothes, really... I just want a red velvet dress. That is all, but she laughs at that."

Eponine grins and stands up.

"Come. Let us make a run and save our money for another day."

"So you're just going to sleep outside?"

Howard gets up, a little gingerly because he stomach is turning. "Credit cards don't work that way. We already paid."

Which is sad, because he totally likes the idea of stiffing their waiter.

"It wouldn't be the first time."

She looks defiant for a moment, but then she sighs. Soft beds and feather pillows are far too alluring. It's somehow easier to sleep outside when there's nothing to go back to.

"But I shall go. Come, shall we walk?"

She too, gets up stiffly, clutching her bubbling stomach. "Oh, I feel sick."

She has no concept of credit cards. "I thought they were like, things so they would know who we are."

She sounds crestfallen. "I had thought I had been running without paying. I'm going to have no money now."

"Sure. I could use company." And they can both move slowly so as not to upset their stomachs any further.

He smiles at the woeful look on her face. "Hey, don't worry. They still feed us at the suites, and if not, the people here throw out better things in their garbage than I ate in the whole last year."

And he's not above dumpster diving. In fact, the jacket he's wearing now was grabbed from a trash can, because his stylists insisted on ones that were too tight and form-fitting. 'With your body we could try for androgyny-chic', they'd said, and he'd wanted to spot at them.

She smiles briefly, and makes her way outside. Her stomach feels huge and bubbles a little under her hand.

"I know - it is not food I think of... I was thinking I could take my money home with me when we are allowed. I could buy a little room and maybe learn to sew so I could do mending or something."

Or maybe it'd shut her dad up and make him leave her alone for a little while.

"But if it is on these cards... I don't think we have such a thing in my Paris."

She laughs again though. "Garbage! I like that word. They do, do they not? Such food as even the students would go mad for in Paris, let alone us. It was a good day to get food from the 'garbage'; my brother, Gavroche - he was good at this. He knew how to rob a bin without being noticed."

She walks slowly through the streets as they chat, in no hurry at all to go back to the training centre.

"Ah." He has no desire to ever return home, so he forgets that for her it's a possibility, maybe even a hope. "Maybe you could bring the technology from here to Paris and advance them a little bit."

He laughs with her. "We could use your brother around here. I got caught, but used my Tribute star power to get out of trouble." His tone darkens slightly. "I guess they think it's kind of cute, here, like we're their pets and that whatever we do is really charming and quaint."

"I could take this... but we have nothing to get money out of it. I have never even seen... is it called plastic? We do not have such a thing in Paris."

She laughs again.

"You were CAUGHT? How? You were robbing a bin?"

Although her smile fades as he adds the bit about them being like pets.

"Cute? I am not a pet and I am not to be 'quaint' or 'charming' to make them happy. These people - they need to go to our worlds and see how it is. Then they will not think we are cute. They make me feel sick, even more than their food."

"Nah, this is just worth plastic. But I mean, bring back some phones, or cameras, or man, even just penicillin or something. I bet you can find medicine here for half the shit you have back home."

He laughs back. "Yeah, someone yelled at me because I was pulling stuff from a bin. I was ready to pull a knife on them or something, but then they noticed I was a Tribute and laughed it off."

He nods. "Yeah, it's...creepy. And insulting. Like the stuff we scrape through is a fun story for them, even when we're right in front of them with scars all over and all."

"People stare at my neck. Here."
She gestures. "And one man, he made me sit and tell him how it felt when that man in the arena had me, and before he killed me. And if I could feel blood and the such. I do not wish to remember that."
She sighs.
"But as that woman said, our opinions do not matter. We just have to let them kill us more and more."

Howard remembers seeing the footage of Eponine dying. His death was longer, from infection, but in some ways seemed preferable to hers. He runs his hand over his nose.

"And what did you tell that man?"

"That I was hungry, and I was surprised when the man grabbed me, but I wasn't scared, not even with the blade to my neck. That I had had a blade at my neck many times already, and probably more when Montparnasse finds me - well, I did not add that last bit, but...

And then I said of course I felt blood; it was the warmest thing I had felt in a long time, and it came into my mouth too, and it tasted funny and I couldn't breathe. I said it hurt when the man put it in my neck properly, but I knew that it was nearly the end so I did not mind so much. He asked if I was scared because I must have died alone in the dark because the canon did not boom for a few minutes, and I said I wasn't scared. I just thought about home and heaven and then... that was it."

Eponine talks about it all matter of factly, and shrugs.
"And then he wanted to touch my neck and kiss it where it had been cut, which was not nice, but he said he had paid for my drinks so I owed him, so I let him. They are strange to want to kiss where another has killed."

Howard looks a bit sick as Eponine recounts what it was like to die, although that might just be all the eating they did. He's died twice now, or so he thinks - once back home and once in the Arena. The Arena was slow, agonizing, losing control of his body as infection and fever cooked away his brain. In the FAYZ, it was fast, but no less terrifying, held down on the ground while another boy choked him to death.

Maybe the memories will get easier to tolerate the more they die. He never had such dignity as Eponine did - he was scared. Scared and pleading for his life even when he couldn't speak.

"People here are fucked up." He's glad no one's made such propositions to him, although that might be because he's a boy. "I don't think they see it as dying. More like...acting, I guess."

"I wasn't acting."

Eponine doesn't ask about Howard's death. Frankly, she'd rather not know. Quite honestly, she doesn't particularly care.

"Were you acting? Are you acting now? I am not pretending to be anybody; I can't pretend. I don't know how. It was acting and - and it HURT. And I am NOT doing it again!"

"I didn't say you were acting. I said that's what the people here seem to think we're doing," he says tersely. Just because he hasn't gone into detail about how scary it was to die doesn't mean that he enjoyed it, or didn't care that it was happening. "They don't think it's real, they don't know what it's like to be afraid and in pain like that."

"I know. And it isn't fair. Why should they have to do it to us? Why not experience it yourself if you want so badly to know what it feels like? I would stick a knofe in that man's throat, I'd do it to all of them!

Well... no, I wouldn't. I will not kill. I will NOT be like my Papa. But if anyone deserves it, they do."

Howard raises his eyebrows at Eponine. He wasn't expecting that kind of outburst from her, whether she means it or not. To tell the truth, it scares him a little, and he takes a step back from her. He's had too much experience taking the brunt of other people's anger - and he's sure she has to.

"Keep your voice down, they might be watching us," he whispers. "Or listening in with their cameras and microphones."

"I don't care if they're watching us. I am not scared of them, and neither should you be."

Eponine raises her voice a little, just to prove that she isn't scared.

"What will they do to us? Throw us into an arena to fight for our lives? Ha! I am not scared of that!"

"No, they just won't resurrect us, and we'll be dead for good," he hisses, hoping that she'll take the cue and lower her voice.

"I'm not scared of death, either. It would be better than dying over and over." She lowers her voice a smidge.

"Perhaps that is better than the arena. Besides, was it you who said that they would not just let us die because they wanted to watch us? They will not kill us for good, then, surely? I'm not scared. I will spit if they come near me to hurt me."

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