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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"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."

"Unless you have acid spit, I don't think that's going to do much good." He wraps his arms around himself. "And I'm plenty scared of death."

"It will show them that I don't care for them."

Eponine stops walking, and turns to face Howard properly. In a much softer tone than she had previously used, she asks,

"Why are you scared of death? It is the end of pain and hard work, no? Like a sleep you never wake up from and people can never make you do anything again. It's a good thing, you know?"

"That's what I hope death is like. I like sleeping." He laughs, but it's a weak, transparent gesture. He really is genuinely scared of this, and it shows all over his face. "But what if that's it? What if that's the end, and I'm fifteen years old and have never seen snow before? Or the Atlantic Ocean? Or a solar eclipse? What if I die before I ever get to, I don't know, fall in love or get a real job or do anything besides just scrap around surviving?"

"Then you... You'll be ordknary. Just like so many other people. I will tell you, youare lucky not to have snow. My Papa used to send me and 'Zelma - my sister, you know - to stand for hours and hours in it with no shoes and no shawls between us. Sometimes I were sure my feet'd drop off; they would go bright red all over, and it'd feel as if you stood on glass and rubbed needles into your legs. After a bit, the skin goes blue. It is not nice. And the while, your arms are blue and your face is red from the cold and the snow makes your hair wet and wealthier men find it funny to throw more snow at you and make suggestions like these lot. You truly are not missing much."

She pauses. She's never heard of the other things, bar love. And that is the most painful thing she has ever experienced. She's lost her home, her allies, for her love. Her Papa hit her, though that was nothing new... And he doesn't even notice her, never mind love her. At least, that's what she thinks love is. She's never received any sort of love, though, and she doesn't truly understand it, or know what it feels like, and she isn't able to truly love. Eponine's greatest tragedy, ladies and gentlemen.

She goes to take Howard's hand, nervously laughing.
"I promise, M'sieur, when snow comes and we have nothing, you'll wish you were dead."
Eponine lets go just as quickly. She starts to walk fast, lest her own need for physical contact, for comfort, was misconstrued as something else.

"Well, it's not just snow," Howard says quietly, letting her hand go. He makes no gesture to cling to it - he's not terribly fond of physical contact, and more than that, he thinks she's missing the point of his fear. Maybe it's because she comes from a different time when people are used to dying at young ages, whereas where he's from, it's something everyone's still adjusting to.

"Anyway, the point is I'm scared. That was the worst part of dying, for me, the fear. I almost wanted it to be over just so I could stop being so terrified." Even talking about it now, his hands start to shake, and he buries them in his jacket pockets. "But maybe you're right, and once it's snowing I'll reconsider."

"Do you really want to admit that to me?"

Howard, Eponine thinks, is immature. Not in a bad way; she wishes she could be scared and admit that she was scared. But it shows that for a long time, death hadn't been a reality for him; she'd escaped death for going on ten years, and how she'd managed it, she wasn't quite sure. But Howard, his home had seemingly been secure for a long time before he was left homeless, and it seemed to Eponine as if he hadn't toughened up yet or worked out how to be streetwise.

First rule of the streets: Never admit you're scared.
Second rule: Never tell anybody anything that they can use against you - a rule that Eponine too often forgets. Howard doesn't seem to have learned it.

"You might get sponsors, you know, if you do not say such. If you are scared of dying, you will need them."

"I guess it's not much of an admittance. Most people are scared. I'd assume unless someone was saying otherwise, they're probably scared too." He seems a bit abashed, though - she's right, he shouldn't have admitted that to her. Just because they're in the same lot doesn't mean they're friends.

He shakes his head. "If we play the game, we're going to die anyway. It's either that or win, and let's face it, neither you or me are winner material. But the plan's to get a few sponsors, once I figure out how, and then at least they'll try to bring me back each time, and that'll make the dying not so bad."

The key to getting Sponsors seems to be a bit beyond Howard - he knows it isn't as simple as appearing unafraid. He has to learn to be entertaining, according to the insane standards of this place.

"Perhaps you are right."

Eponine sighs. "I do not want to be a winner. Not if it means having to kill. I don't care. But you - you're young, and you look strong."

She laughs, apprising him with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.
"And you are not bad looking. In fact, I would say that you are good looking. People will like you, I think, if you smile and kill. Maybe at the same time. Do NOT kill me, though. If you do, I will make you pay for everything next time we both have these credit cards."

She laughs, embarrassed, but trying to hide it. Eponine thinks she knows how to flirt and tease but it tends to come off as awkward, because she can't maintain the eye contact needed to make it seem genuine.

"I think the thing is not to play their game, but if you wish to survive, then you must. And that is your choice."

She shudders as the Training Centre comes into view. "They teach us to kill - and yet they are not afraid that we will rise against them. That was what was happening in Paris too, you know?"

He holds an arm out, rolls up his sleeve, and flexes with a cheeky grin. If his bicep looks pronounced, it's only because there's so little extra flesh to smooth it out. "Yeah, I'm a real knockout. Maybe if you come to take revenge on me, I'll just woo you into submission with my charming smile."

The truth is he never really thought about it that way. He's never found himself ugly, really, but he's always just been the scrawny black kid in the back of the class, putting people off by attitude and general antipathy. No one's ever called him good-looking, except for his grandmother, and like all kids he assumed she was biased.

But maybe his stylists - and Eponine - have a point. He's as awkward with flirting as she is, though, and looks more at the space behind her head than at her face.

His face falls a bit, though, as he reflects on her next statement.

"But I don't want to be that person, someone who kills 'em with a smile. I don't know if I can be. I mean, in the arena...if I have to, I will, but I don't want it to get to that point. I'd rather just eke it out entertainingly." He blinks. "You can't be talking about a revolution."

Eponine doesn't respond to his joke about wooing her. She's never been wooed in her life, though she wants to be, and badly. No, she's come to the conclusion that she's ugly and poor and stupid to boot, destined never to be loved. It hurts, but it hurts less when she doesn't think about it. So she changes the subject as soon as possible.

"I don't know what happened; I was brought here before those students did anything. But they had been chattering about it - Gavroche told me. They wanted us all, well, the men, to rise against the rich and the National Guard and fight. I do not know. If it happens, it does. But it seems silly to me that they train us to fight. Do they not know that we could? Or perhaps that is why we kill each other? To make us hate each other? I do not know. It just seems... I'm not learning to kill there. I know how to kill well. I do not need training. "

"What's the point if we can only kill each other in hand to hand combat, or by traps? They have tanks and guns and bombs. Even if everyone who ever won these games and everyone who came close rose against them, we'd be toast." He taps his temple. "Besides, who's saying they didn't think about that and just put a self-destruct switch in our brains when we were lying dead on their operating tables?"

Howard may be immature, but he is endlessly paranoid and cynical. Give him a few years and he'll be a full-fledged tin hat-wearing conspiracy theorist.

"Maybe they're just teaching us to be okay with killing, so they can turn us on their enemies."

"What are tanks and bombs?"
They won't be invented for at least another fifty years from Eponine's time.
"Can they really put things into our heads, do you think? I don't think I'd like that. Though, it is that they don't care, isn't it? I do not know about you, but I never, ever want to kill."

She keeps trudging resolutely towards the centre though. Where else is she to go?

"They're like really huge guns that can take out a thousand people at once." And he nods. "Sure, they can put things in our heads. They can bring us back from the dead, can't they?"

He winces as his stomach seizes, pausing for a step. "For all our rage, we're still just rats in their cage," he lightly sings.

Eponine's eyes widen. She can't imagine that. Guns were rare enough, and devestating - but a gun that could kill one thousand people all together? That was far, far more than Eponine could count or even properly imagine. She runs a hand through her hair without thinking, tugging half of it out of the straggly ponytail she sported.

"Is that a song from your home? It is a nice tune, but... I don't want to be a rat. I wasn't born a street rat, you know? And none of us - think of those who have already been in arenas; this was our first; I saw you entering, M'sieur. None of us deserve it. But there is nothing I can do for you or anyone else. I can only look after myself. I wish it was my cage and other people were the rats."

Howard realizes for the first time just how different his and Eponine's times are - and how difficult it might be to adjust to the idea of being able to blow a whole town off the map. He's had his whole life to get used to the idea of the atom bomb, and over a year to come to grips with the idea that thousands of people can just be gone in a blink. Were just gone in a blink. The whole world outside Perdido, and his parents and teachers and grandparents too.

"Yeah, it's, um, Smashing Pumpkins, I think." He bites at his nail. "I wasn't either. I mean, I'm not even a street rat now, not really, or maybe we're all just street rats back home."

He doesn't like the idea. He doesn't like how this place, and the FAYZ, tamp down the civilized sides of their nature. But he doesn't know how to explain that.

"Got to agree with you, though. I got nothing against you, Eponine, but I'm only looking after myself."

"Still, at least it is nice that you remember my name."

She grins. Usually, it takes more than two conversations before people actually bother to remember her name.

"So, if it comes to it, in the arena? Would you kill me? If it was me or you? Would you do it?"

"That's because it's a funny name. At least, where I'm from, it is." He's about to say that it sounds like a seizure disorder to him, but realizes that she's probably not going to take that well and stops himself.

He bites his lip. "If there was no other option? I think I could. Kill you. Maybe. I don't know." There's footage of him killing a woman from the last arena, but that hardly counts, that was a mercy kill, she'd begged him... "Probably."

Deep down he knows the answer is yes.

"A funny name? Do you really think so?"

Is it really a funny name, Eponine? "I had always liked it. It stayed the same every time, you see? I might be Thenardier or Jondrette or another name through the year, but always Eponine."

She laughs, just to fill the silence really, whilst she digests what Howard tells her.

"Well then, M'sieur. You will owe me a lot of ice cream." She tries to keep the disappointment and bitterness out of her voice, buut doesn't succeed very well.

"Well, unusual. Not funny like haha, funny like...memorable." Which can only be a good thing here. "I guess it makes me think of horses, which, I mean. Generally is a good thing. I give most people nicknames, but I don't really feel like I should give you one."

He doesn't laugh in return. He doesn't want to ask the question back, doesn't want to acknowledge that he's admitting to being capable of stooping to lower levels than her. "If it ever comes to that, you can have my credit card when we're both out."

As if that makes it better.

"Take the money you would make from killing me?"

That makes her laugh all the harder. She's probably coming across as a little mad, but she doesn't care. Doesn't even realise.

"I would not do that for you, if I killed you. I would take everything you had, and I would not give it back when we next met. I will hold you to that, though, when you kill me. If you do."

Howard lets her laugh. It's an empty gesture, really. Money doesn't mean much when the training center covers their base needs.

"Well, we probably won't anyway. Odds of either of us making it to the end are pretty low, aren't they? You won't kill and I'm a skinny little rat who doesn't want to. Not exactly winner material."

"You never know though, do you? Things happen; we could find a good place to hide and wait it out. After all, if you are a skinny rat, then I am no better than you. And rats; that is what we are good at; hiding, no?"

She thinks back to that conversation she'd had with the woman on the magic screen thing.

"I will need a good hiding place, I think, where they can't see me at all. And I do not WANT to kill. I will not kill if there is a way to avoid it. But if someone asked... perhaps."

Or Marius was there. Though she wouldn't kill him herself. But she'd lead him towards a trap, so she could try to save him. They could die together then... and maybe he would love her if that happened, She stands lost in thought as she contemplates Marius. Would she do it? Would she dare?

He laughs, finally. "That's a good point. We're definitely good at hiding. As long as we don't get the toxic plague like last time, maybe we can wait out all of everyone else killing each other."

Then he frowns again, although that's partially the nausea. "If they can't see you at all, they won't bring you back for the next round. And you'll never see Paris and..." What was the guy's name? Mario? "That guy you like again."

"The man that I like?"

She laughs but stops abruptly. "There is no man that I like. Only M'sieur Marius; he is my friend. I think."

She shrugs. "He would not notice if I did not come home. He doesn't often notice. Not many people do."

Eponine again speaks matter of factly; she's not fishing for sympathy or pity; she'd be disgusted at them both if he reacted in such a way. She feels really awkward, and her body language reflects it. Her shoulders hunch forwards, and her knees bend a little, and her hands are clenched into balls by her side. It's her face though, the way she bites on her lip to make sure she can feel something; every time she says that, she feels a little bit more dead inside, and it's her eyes, the way she's suddenly looking at some point over Howard's left shoulder, rather than directly at him.

"That is why you surprise me that you remember my name. Why won't you give me a nickname? It means we are friends, does it not?"

Tell Me I'm Gonna Be Alright [Open]

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