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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"Go for it." He doesn't offer to share his food - he doesn't like Eponine, or anyone, nearly well enough for that - but he pats at the seat next to him. He likes her well enough; like him, she's a scrounger. The eyes around the room follow them.

"You're looking good." They've both been packing weight back on - Howard can still see his ribs jutting out any time he's shirtless, but the sunken areas around his eyes have started to fill and his arms and legs are starting to look smooth, rather than like obviously disparate pieces of bone and muscle stuck together.

"It is that stylist. She insists I brush my hair two hundred times a night. I tried to tell her I can't do it, but she has someone come to do it for me and they natter natter natter, 'Eponine, what have you been doing? Your hair is matted - oh, and there is a grey hair - and split ends - well, Eponine, we will make you over in the morning.' I like being a proper lady, M'sieur, but they make me feel funny... dirty and not a real person."

Eponine chatters as she eats, slurping up the rich meat in sauce. She has no idea what she's eating, and she doesn't particularly care. Howard will be treated to a nice view of mushed up food if he cares to look at her whilst she talks.

"It is still better than Paris - or the arena. I have told them, I am not going back and I will not kill. I would rather do a job here than be in there. There is no point. The food is too good here."

"Yeah. I've noticed that." His stylist's found things wrong with him, and while he's been happy to have some things fixed - hair cut back down to a manageable length, rotting teeth removed, unsightly eye infections treated - he's resisted their attempts to 'doll him up' with hair dye, tattoos and clothing that makes him wonder how girls feel so comfortable wearing revealing outfits. "It's like if I don't put my foot down, I'll wake up in the morning with someone else's face transplanted on mine. Someone prettier, since that's what matters here."

Howard's table manners are no better. He uses his fork and cloth napkin, but the former seems more like an afterthought of a more polite time, as he piles food up to the handle - and the latter is something to sop up any juices he can't lick up, and eventually ends up in his mouth as he sucks it dry.

"Yeah? And are they giving you a job here?" He'd be surprised if they were. "The way I see it, the time we do in the arena is our employment. And then this is how they pay us."

"She said no." Eponine stirs her sauce moodily, before looking around quickly. Capitol citizens are staring, but Eponine decides she doesn't care. She lifts the plate to her lips and slurps up the sauce, licking the plate clean quite literally. The citizens look appalled at her, before they begin to chuckle; there's sauce in her hair and round her mouth, and dripping off her chin. Eponine laughs too, though she clutches her sore belly.

"I don't care what she says, though. Sometimes in Paris, my Papa used to try to make me do things I didn't like. Sometimes I had to do them, if he sent the gang to watch, or the man would come back to Papa to complain, but sometimes, I used to throw the letter in the Seine and filch money from someone else. It is the same here, except I don't care who watches me. If I go back, I'll just be killed, and what is the point in that?"

Howard sucks on his napkin as he waits for the waiter to bring more. He wonders when he'll hit the limit on the card. He wonders if it matters, really - he'll still be fed in his room. It's gross, he thinks, how far he fell from where he was when he was thirteen. Now he's like a pet animal, waiting for the next meal, but that's all people are when the trappings are stripped off. Walking beings of need.

Howard's eyes narrow as he tries to piece together what Eponine's just told him, and he hopes it's just the language barrier making her sound as if she was pimped out. Given her appearance when they first met, however, he doubts it. "Parents suck. At least we don't have them around here any more to tell us what to do."

The truth is he misses his, but he can't help but feel the adults in his life abandoned him, so screw them.

"Entertainment for them."

"My parents... my Papa hates me now, and I hate him - but I love him too. I hope I don't see him or the gang again, though these people will enjoy our reunion, I think."

She gestures at the other diners.

"In Paris, I watched some of the executions - the guillotine with it's flashing blade. It was such entertainment, you know, and you somehow didn't think of the men being killed, or the women. I did not watch, but I was there; I heard them crying - like how I... and I heard the screams of the crowd, and I picked their pockets whilst men lost their heads. I am a horrid person, no? But that is how I made the best money. It is funny, though, now we are the men losing their heads. I have done it once, but no. I will not again. They can't make me."

She can't understand Howard's blase attitude about it all. "Does it not bother you, M'sieur? Or perhaps, you think you can win? Or maybe, secretly, you enjoyed it. The man I was to marry, he enjoyed it. It was what he liked best, to kill. So do not think I will be shocked if that is what you think."

"I don't know what I'd do if I saw my parents again." He taps his fork against his lower lip as if he's only thoughtful and absent-minded as he says that. He's pictured what he'd do a million types before going to sleep, but it's always different - one day he's punch them, one day he'd scream, one day he'd run to them and throw his arms around them and feel safe for just a moment. Sometimes he'd tell them everything that happened, sometimes he would never speak a word of it to them.

Howard listens intently. "No, that's not you being a bad person, that's you doing what you have to do. People like you and me got a lower moral standard than people who have everything they need." Not that Howard intends to raise his now that his immediate needs are taken care of.

He looks vaguely sick, and more than that, insulted. "What? No, I'm not like that, I'm not a killer." No matter what the $100 in his pocket says. "I'm not some kind of...I'm not some sicko who gets off on it."

"'Parnasse was. Is." She shrugs. "It's kik-kik - all the same to me. Some men are violent, and some are lords. And then there is us - I might be a bad girl, but I have not stooped to murder, though I could have, and I won't do it now. I can't be a killer. I won't."

She adds another sentence softly, almost to herself. " And Marius would never love me then."

Shaking herself, she beckons to a waiter, who comes with a plate of chocolate cake and ice cream, two simple delicacies that she has never had. Digging in, she offers a small smile.

"I didn't mean to upset you, you know. I was just saying that it can be so."

"I don't think it's always wrong," he says. There's no point denying he killed someone. The screen replay it every once in a while - it's not the ratings booster Donatello's killing spree was, but the Capitol finds something primal and exciting about a boy beating a girl's head in with a rock. Mercy kill or not.

He raises an eyebrow at her and tilts his head to the side. "Marius your dad?"

That earns another laugh.
"No! My papa is known as 'Jondrette' sometimes, or 'Thenardier' or 'Mabeuf' or any other name he cares for. But never Marius. He's..."

She smiles to herself, biting her lip, and in her daydream, she forgets about the food.

"He lived next door, and Papa sent me to beg there... He was lovely. And such luxuries he had - a bed on a stand - and a mirror. That was the first time I'd properly seen myself, and didn't it come as a shock? He is nice, though, M'sieur Marius. He gave me food and money. But he cannot understand my world. And so he shouldn't. It is not a nice one to know... But if he knew me as a killer; he does not even realise that I'm a whore, though a beggar and a thief, yes... He would see me locked up, I think, if he saw me as a murdress. Or he would never talk to me again."

Howard's conclusion is that French names are weird.

"He doesn't sound very understanding if he doesn't get that you might have to kill in a killing game." Frankly, he finds the idea a little pathetic, and Eponine falls in his opinion. And deep down he knows that's hypocritical, because he's no different, trying to keep Orc's affections.

He glances at her food, temporarily ignored, but figures she'll probably stab his hand if he tries to sneak it from her, so he doesn't. Instead he drums his fingers impatiently waiting for his next plate.

"He would understand a kill if there is a reason for it. A real reason. He would not understand me becoming like my father, and nor should he. It is a bad thing to be, and I might be a bad girl, M'sieur, but I will NOT be that bad."

Don't you dare say anything negative about M'sieur Marius. He's the one good thing in Eponine's life and she clings to it.

"A lady does not kill - and I was not always as I am, and I will not be worse. I could have been a lady."

Eating her food with the right utensils instead of her fingers, perhaps... It was obviously not meant to be. She notices him looking.

"You can try a little if you like?"

He won't argue with her on that one - he has nothing to gain by antagonizing her. As much as he doesn't think she'll be much help in the arena, it's better to have one ally than none, and if they somehow end up stuck together he can trust that she probably won't kill him. Rob him blind, maybe, but she seems pretty stuck on this Not Being a Murderer thing.

He gives her a suspicious look, then jabs a fork into some of the chocolate and takes it for himself. "Thanks. I think they're taking extra long with the next plate of food so I don't throw up in the bathroom sink again."

"That happens to you, too?"

Eponine seems positively delighted by that revelation.

"I thought I was the only one. I do not know what is wrong - this food is so delicious- but every time, it makes my stomach clench and turn inside out, M'sieur. And then I am sick. But still - and it is disgusting, I cannot stop eating. I just eat more. Never have I seen such food and so much. This is how I imagined heaven, you know?"

"Oh, yeah. It's because we're eating too much." It's such a weird alternative to what they're used to. "But it's...I mean, it's not bad for us in the long run if we don't do it too much, this is just us getting used to this place. We'll slow down eventually."

He hopes this doesn't turn into a habit.

"I used to sit in the dark - I mean, we aren't supposed to use the batteries where I'm from, and candles are really expensive, so - I used to sit in the dark and count off all the food I was going to eat if I ever got out of there. Now I'm here and I guess I'm just fulfilling a promise to myself."

"I don't think I will ever slow down." She grins. It fades a little as Howard continues though.

"That is... torture. How could you think on it like that? When I had no food and no light, I would sit in the street under the window of the inns or the houses and so there was light - and the food. No. Never I thought what I was eating or going to eat, or used to. It would be horrid to think on it. What is the point of thinking on what you cannot have? It makes you sad - and I do not like that!"

Hopefully they'll never have to, he thinks. The waiter brings back his order and he starts on that, too, even though his stomach is shuddering and protesting.

"Yeah, well, I'm good at torturing myself." He wrinkles his nose. "I couldn't really help it. Couldn't think about anything else. And no one has light at night where I'm from, so it's just you and your thoughts and, I don't know, killer plagues and wild animals."

"It was not always so bad in Paris. There were rats, but that is the most dangerous, and the cough."
She means typhoid.
"But at night, that was when the city came to life. Singing and dancing in the inns and people falling in the road so you could rob 'em. There'd be men waiting in the shadows, and the Ladies at the park catcalling and warballing to get the attention of gentlemen. It was dangerous, yes, but Paris... she BREATHED. Everything lit up. Sometimes the moon would light the streets and I could wander through them as if it were day. You need only be scared if you were not one of us. You would like it maybe? Sometimes I liked it. Sometimes it was bad. I don't think on that if I can help, either."

Howard smiles a bit. He has no such nice things to say about Perdido Beach, at least, not the way it was when he left it. But buried deep down there are still good memories of skipping school to hang out by the cliffs, chatting with his group in the salty ocean air, relaxing in the sun, rigging skateboards and throwing rocks at the highway.

"Sounds interesting, at least. Never a dull day in Paris." He chews the tip of his fork, having cleared another plate. "Would you go back? I mean, would you leave this for Paris?"

She stops eating, considering.

"That I do not know... They are both as bad as each other. I would take bits from each and make a new place. I would take the wealth here - but I would have M'sieur Marius and his friends, and there would be no killing in arenas. Just food and good times. I wouldn't thieve, and my Papa, he could have an inn again. And such technology as is here. That I would take. Television and the such. And maybe, maybe in that world, Marius might love me. Would you? Go home, I mean?"

"Hell no. There's nothing back there." He runs his finger around the edge of his plate. "But your ideal world sounds nice. I'd hang out there. Probably rent a room in your dad's in or whatever."

"I would not reccommend that." She laughs.

"You would stay a week and owe him over one hundred francs. My Papa, he knows how to work the books. Everything is extra at my Papa's inn, even sleeping with the window shut - though he will say 'open' if you do that. If I had my way, though, everyone would get at least a room and a bed and some food each day. Everyone."

"So that's where you get it from." He smirks. "Even if they can't pay? Then you're not running an inn, you're running a charity."

"Get what from?"

Eponine shoots him a puzzled look, before scooping up the end of her cake. Stomach full, she sprawls back in her chair, clutching it as she fights the bile she can feel rising.

"Would you cast someone out if they could not pay? I slept a whole winter under a bridge because I could not pay. That I would wish on nobody."

"Your sneakiness. I know you steal. I do too, it's nothing to be ashamed of."

He shrugs. "Any money I waste on someone else is money I don't have later, when I really need it. It's not my fault they have to sleep under a bridge. That could be me if I'm not careful."

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