thecapitol | My Salvation is Found in Discipline [Closed]

WHO| A stranger and Joan Watson.
WHAT| Secrets emerge.
WHEN| After Week Four of the Arena.
WHERE| Tribute Center
WARNINGS| None yet.

Antony has never actually been to the Capitol before. In spite of the relative luxury he lived in in District Three as one of the finest contractors, his lifestyle paled compared to what's offered to even the coffee baristas here. If he were the type of person to care deeply about the injustice, he'd be livid, but instead he's just mildly irked as he helps himself to the showers here.

The showers are the best part, all hot water and a thousand different kinds of soap that you can program in to give you exactly the scent and texture you prefer. Antony goes for a sort of cologne, something that smells rich, indulgent, classy, and then he has an Avox shave him and dress him in clothes that feel like the caress of down on his skin. All spiffed up, he heads out to investigate his new abode now that he's been put up temporarily in the Tribute Center.

It's not unusual for outsiders to roam the Tribute Center hallways poking at all the new things. The difference is that, of course, Antony's not been seen for even a moment in the Arena, and usually new Tributes are dumped there instead of let loose here.

He passes by a woman with dark hair who would have caught his eye were she a little younger. He'd want to buy her if she were (everyone, it turns out, has a price). Regardless, she's worth a look and a whistle.

"You're one of the Arena folks, aren't you?"

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Joan would usually just roll her eyes and keep walking. But she's angry right now, angry at the Capitol for taking her father, for taking Sherlock, for gleefully watching her die four times now. She's been dealing with her anger by withdrawing, by throwing herself into what work she can scrounge up, watching news, reading reports, trying to read the Capitol corruption in the white space between the lines. And now, now on one of the rare times she's been out of her room, and this asshole catcalls her?

She stops. Turns. Narrows her eyes.

"Wow. You must be a genius. Guessing I'm one of those 'arena people.' In the place where the 'arena people' live. When all us 'arena people' have our faces on screens and bobble head dolls and tie-in novels. Amazing."

"I am a genius." He's smug. He feels he's earned it.

Here's the thing. He's scared of the Capitol. He's scared of what they might do to him if he lets on what they told him not to let on, back home about his District. He doesn't know entirely what's going on back there, only that they airlifted him and his family out of there.

Because, as he said, he's a genius.

"I wouldn't talk to me like that if I were you," he says, wagging his finger. "Once I figure this place out I'll have it wrapped around my finger."

"Of course you will," she says witheringly, finding his smugness to be just sad. "The Capitol is full of conceited bastards. You'll fit right in."

She turns sharply, her ponytail swishing, and starts back down the hall.

Antony's always hated that, rejection. No one likes it, and yet he feels it more keenly that others, being a child in his industry, at the tender age of seventeen. Being unimpressive in stature, with words, with social skills.

He grabs her wrist. "I don't remember asking you to leave. I ain't-"

He stops. 'Ain't' is a District word, unbefitting of a Capitol citizen. It's uncouth and betrays his District accent.

"I'm not that sort of creep. Don't have to be. But don't go yet."

She turns back, glaring at him. She heard that bit of District twang to his voice. Of course he's from the Districts. He clearly hasn't been in the Capitol long.

"What, not the kind of creep that just randomly grabs a woman he doesn't know?" she says, eyes narrowed, as she yanks her wrist from his grasp. "I don't know which District you're from, but at least the people in the Capitol tend to have a little more class."

"Three," he hisses. He knows better than to try to attack her, even if he were that sort of person - who knows what an Arena person is capable of? "Not that it matters anymore."

Supposedly, they won't be going home. There are rumors among the transplants, but only one thing is certain: they're in the Capitol for the long haul.

"And why should it?" she replies sharply. "You made it out and to the Capitol. You can safely turn your back on the people who work for a living. Who make all this possible and then starve for their trouble. At least the Capitol isn't killing their children for sport anymore."

"I was relocated. I hardly 'made it out'." She's talking as if he's one of the desperate scrappers who have their names in twenty times in the Reaping. He would have been one of them, if not for his brilliance.

Which does not, apparently, translate to social skills.

"I work harder than you do for a living. The only reason you know who you are is because of my work."

"Right. All I have to do is be shoved into a fight to the death every couple months and die horribly. You're right. I have it so easy."

She take a step back and gestures at him.

"And you have it so hard. I'm sure your family is just so torn up over you having to come and slave away at the Capitol. All they have to do is make all this electronic stuff. That's District three, right? They keep us in all these wonderful TV screens and cameras and microphones?"

"I invented the bits that keep your brain together every time you go and do that dying! That's why they plucked me out of the talentless hacks in my District to save!"

He realizes he's said too much, and his face pales. He throws a glance over his shoulder, but that's stupid - he's seen personally how small the surveillance equipment here is.

"I gotta go." And with that he bolts out the door, leaving it unspoken and yet all too clear that by 'save' he meant nothing to do with the Games.

She stares after him as he bolts. That there was something that kept their brains together when they died was one thing. In another context she might have concentrated on that. And she will doubtless look into it. If she lasts that long.

But right now, what catches her is what he said about his district. About being saved. It frightened him. He wasn't supposed to say anything about that specific thing.

What was he saved from?

My Salvation is Found in Discipline [Closed]

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