Howard Bassem (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iselldrugstothecommunity) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thecapitol2014-05-08 02:06 am
iselldrugstothecommunity) wrote in thecapitol2014-05-08 02:06 am
Entry tags:
My Hungry Ghost of Hopefulness [Closed]
WHO| Howard and his interviewers (Rat, Eponine and possibly Roland), Howard and Orc, Howard and R, Howard and Wyatt
WHAT| Howard petitions out
WHEN| Before the latest Panem Nightly
WHERE| Tribute Suites
WARNINGS| None, but suicidal ideation may come up.
The paper in his hands is crumpled and grimy with sweat. He's been holding it in his hands for the last two days, picking it up over and over again to check times, check room numbers, make sure that he's ready to make his appointments. He doesn't sleep well, waking from nightmares where he misses his alarm, where he forgets what language is during his interview.
Despite his best efforts, he hasn't really been able to make himself look presentable. Typically he looks better after a few weeks in the Capitol to put some fat on his painfully skinny body, but the stress of waiting for his petition to process has done him no favors. He has dark circles under his eyes, which appear almost bulbous atop his hollow cheeks. His fingers on each hand are covered with scabs up to the first knuckle. His lips are covered with canker sores and he's developed a twitch in his right leg that ambushes him when he sits down.
He doesn't feel ready, and he doesn't feel like he'll feel any better once he's done with each interview. He gets to the doors over an hour in advance and paces outside them, lost, it seems, in his own shallow breathing and possible rejection. He knows, deep in his stomach, what he has to do if his petition is denied. He knows he can't handle another Arena. And yet while he isn't allowing himself to contemplate willfully, images of how he has to die start trickling into his mind and lurking in the shadows.
He knocks on the door at exactly the correct time for each interview.
-/-
After each one, there is no dissipation of tension. There's no feeling of relief, that he's done the hard part. The hard part is still the waiting, and that's still happening, like a car wreck he's going through in slow motion. He tries to sit by himself in his room but, to put it politely, he psychs himself out.
(The truth is that he finds himself unable to breathe, finds his legs unable to support his weight, starts shaking so hard he has to lie down and stare at the ceiling as if the white paint above him will swallow him up.)
He gets up and takes the elevator to District 4 and District 10. He goes and he finds his friends, no matter how they currently feel about him.
WHAT| Howard petitions out
WHEN| Before the latest Panem Nightly
WHERE| Tribute Suites
WARNINGS| None, but suicidal ideation may come up.
The paper in his hands is crumpled and grimy with sweat. He's been holding it in his hands for the last two days, picking it up over and over again to check times, check room numbers, make sure that he's ready to make his appointments. He doesn't sleep well, waking from nightmares where he misses his alarm, where he forgets what language is during his interview.
Despite his best efforts, he hasn't really been able to make himself look presentable. Typically he looks better after a few weeks in the Capitol to put some fat on his painfully skinny body, but the stress of waiting for his petition to process has done him no favors. He has dark circles under his eyes, which appear almost bulbous atop his hollow cheeks. His fingers on each hand are covered with scabs up to the first knuckle. His lips are covered with canker sores and he's developed a twitch in his right leg that ambushes him when he sits down.
He doesn't feel ready, and he doesn't feel like he'll feel any better once he's done with each interview. He gets to the doors over an hour in advance and paces outside them, lost, it seems, in his own shallow breathing and possible rejection. He knows, deep in his stomach, what he has to do if his petition is denied. He knows he can't handle another Arena. And yet while he isn't allowing himself to contemplate willfully, images of how he has to die start trickling into his mind and lurking in the shadows.
He knocks on the door at exactly the correct time for each interview.
-/-
After each one, there is no dissipation of tension. There's no feeling of relief, that he's done the hard part. The hard part is still the waiting, and that's still happening, like a car wreck he's going through in slow motion. He tries to sit by himself in his room but, to put it politely, he psychs himself out.
(The truth is that he finds himself unable to breathe, finds his legs unable to support his weight, starts shaking so hard he has to lie down and stare at the ceiling as if the white paint above him will swallow him up.)
He gets up and takes the elevator to District 4 and District 10. He goes and he finds his friends, no matter how they currently feel about him.
no subject
So instead he dodges it, trying to answer her by the implication of his own question. He stuffs his voice with a sort of confidence he doesn't feel.
He's going to have to watch her suffering another Arena if he gets out. He's going to be dead if he doesn't.
"Why don't you?"
no subject
She shakes her head, and turns her back on Howard. She doesn't want to look at him. She doesn't want to see him escaping this mess, abandoning her in it. How can he leave her now?
"Why are you leaving me here alone?" She doesn't look back at him.
no subject
He can't. He's barely surviving as is, without another death under his belt. Without more starving and dying and waiting each time to see if it's the end.
no subject
"They'll let you go. People like you, though sometimes I wonder why. But me? There are few who like me, and fewer still now that my Pa is here. Howard , I could not stand to chance this. I cannot stand a rejection when I have hoped of a better life."
She's pure anger at first, her cheeks flushed and practically spitting the words at Howard. But her tone gradually becomes more upset. This is it. She 's going to be alone, isn't she?
"And we have only just made friends again. I thought we could stay together as we used to."
no subject
"Jesus, Eponine-"
He can't blow this interview. He can't give her the anger she's so talented at asking for, because it will cost him the petition. It'll cost him his life. And Eponine is petty enough to take that from him, something she so hideously proved back when he was captured by Aunamee.
"I'll send you things. I'll Sponsor you inside the Arena, alright?"
no subject
She steps in towards him, invading his personal space now that there is nowhere left for him to back into. She raises her hands, placing one on either side of Howard. Always the taller, she towers over him now.
"Why can't I hate you for doing it? Why am I gonna let you go?" Her voice is unsteady and she balls one of her hands into a fist, and slowly begins to thump the wall. "What will I do without you?"
no subject
"I'll take care of you better out here than I ever could in there, Epsy Daisy," he says quietly, trying to pluck her better nature with his old nickname for her.
no subject
She arches her neck, so she's looking at the ceiling, desperately trying not to cry. But she is so, so upset.
"You're a taffeur. You maudit, degueulasse, nombriliste taffeur. I HATE you. God, Howard, why do you make me hate you?" She bends so that she's at his eye level, so that she can look into his eyes and try to understand where he's coming from.
"Who's going to stay with me whilst I die now? There is NOBODY left in the damn arena that cares for me now." Which is rather hypocritical of her, considering she's just called him self-centred.
(translation: You're a coward. You damned, rotten, self-centred coward.)
no subject
He takes her words like a beating, eyes closed as if expecting her to hit at him again, braced for the blow he knows is coming.
He's been called a coward a thousand times, and he knows now how true it is.
no subject
You'll be okay here. Wyatt's here now. And everybody likes you. You'll be okay."
no subject
"Before I got here I thought I was a survivor. Now I'm just..." He barely shrugs.
no subject
She turns back on him, absolutely furious. "LOOK AT THIS -" She brandishes her wrist, complete with the Capitol-marked cuff still snugly fitted to it. "Look -"
She turns and tugs at her t-shirt so she can hoik it up about her neck, revealing the long, angry burn down her back.
"That is what stops me. Common sense. They will not have me because they know I have fought against them. I have broken their stupid rules. Well, I don't care. Ian is safe. But YOU - You're a survivor, this is so. You'll survive here. But you're a bloody coward as well and I hate you for it and - and I'm glad for you all together. But GOD - I hate you to leave me there. It will be Cosette leaving again - Please... oh, Howard. I need you."
no subject
He doesn't want to believe her, that somehow the brands they have as troublemakers have disqualified them from the life of peace forever. He doesn't want that to be true when he's only still kept alive by the life support of the hope that this petition will go through.
Not that he'll be free. Just that he'll be okay.
"Epsy. I'll take care of you in the Arena. I'll just do it from afar. You'll get everything you need. Promise."
no subject
But she turns back at her nickname. Epsy. She closes her eyes and exhales through her nose. She has to let him go. She has to let him escape whilst he can.
"Fine. I'll... I will tell them you are to be let go. I'll say everything right. I'll... I will make sure that you are freed from it. I promise you. Will it make you happy?"
no subject
He doesn't know that it will make him happy. He doesn't know if people like him and Eponine are even capable of things like that; it would be like a double-amputee wanting to be a Harlem Globetrotter, in his opinion.
He squeezes her hands. Both of them. "It'll keep me alive."