thecapitol | I Will Contain You, Then Cast You Away [Semi-Open]

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I Will Contain You, Then Cast You Away [Semi-Open]

WHO| Eva and Wallander, Eva and anyone with reason to be around the Peacekeeper HQ
WHAT| Eva sleeps with Wallander and brings him doughnuts.
WHEN| Week 2 of the Arena
WHERE| Wallander's house; Peacekeeper HQ
WARNINGS| Mentions of sex.

For Wallander

She wakes up next to Wallander again and slips out of the bed, donning a loose sheet as she searches for her clothing. Soon enough she's found her shirt and her pants and a rubber band to tie her hair in, even if it originally was used to keep bread in a bag fresh.

They've slept together at least ten times now. Normal people would consider it a relationship. Eva isn't sure she doesn't. That doesn't change her feelings on the matter, and her gaze as she looks at Wallander's bare back is both disdainful and a bit sad. She sits on the windowsill and stares at the moles and sweat on his back and the wrinkles on Kurt's face and the empty ringfinger. The morning light casting its way through the curtains makes him look washed out and not unlike a pastel sketch of a corpse. He snores and his hand roves the bed for the curve of her hip, but he doesn't wake when he finds only the sheets.

She gets up and heads to the kitchen. She does his dishes and she starts some coffee. She puts some makeup she keeps in her purse over the brand on her face. It doesn't do much, but it sends the message that she's trying.

She makes herself at home on his computer too.

-/-

Open

The next day, having spent the night alone at her own house, she pays a visit to Peacekeeper Headquarters. She's been coming in for regular meetings with some of the investigative officers as follow-up to the leads she gave them back during the interrogation. She has a reputation for being "prickly but cooperative" with the officers, which, she says, is a pretty outstanding performance given that they burned part of her face off.

Today she brings in a dozen doughnuts and instructs one of the desk jockeys to take it to Kurt's cube. She's sure only some of them will make it to him, and that the others will fill mouths that alternate between stuffing themselves and gossiping over it.

She doesn't mind that people know she's a Capitol canary; in fact, she all but flaunts it. Nor does she mind terribly that people know she's sleeping with Wallander, and if he's received any flack for it he's kept rather mum about it.

Besides. No one complains about fucking doughnuts.

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There's something in Eva's eyes that barely peeks out from beneath the veneer, something so honestly-meant and vindictive that she can't keep it from her face entirely. She's hoping he chokes. She's hoping he chokes even though he's done nothing to her personally, but because this is the hate she directs at everyone in his station, everyone in this nation, even her own charges.

When she was a teenager, she was an outsider, a 'free spirit'. As an adult, she's a misanthrope, and it's so much more pedestrian.

"I'm sure the office gossip can fill you in easily enough." Eva bats her eyelashes, almost like she's bragging, almost like she's just that shameless. 'Promiscuous' hasn't been one of the adjectives attached to her reputation, but she's trying to change that, if only because of the access it'll give her.

She takes a doughnut for herself, aware of how little Wallander minds the extra padding on her hips and stomach, aware of how soon none of it will matter. She should spend the next few days wrecking her body in ways that time can't catch up to.

"I just like to bring sweet things to sweet people."

Ah. There's understanding in Cyrus' expression, and disdain in his eyes. Not an active disdain, not even for her personally, but for-- the whole idea. Peacekeepers sleeping with suspected criminals. Citizens sleeping with District washouts. The lack of discretion that rumor implies. It's not an urge with which he has any familiarity-- the urge to anchor power in physical subjugation.

Because that's what it must be, of course. On Wallander's end, anyway. How could it be anything else?

"I learned a long time ago to ignore office gossip. I can't have heard even half the things that have been said about me." Wryly. You were on TV enough, and you weren't just the subject of your own office gossip anymore.

"But-- seriously, Miss Salazar--" And he moves a little closer, his hand coming up as though to rest on her arm, and not quite making it there - the idea of friendly intimacy, without the touch. "Everything I've heard about you here has been nothing but favorable. I can't convey how important your contribution to the investigation has been."

A shake of his head. "I wish more in your position would follow your example."

Edited (TYPO CITY) 2014-09-27 16:40 (UTC)

"Probably better for your self-esteem that way. The Tributes are wont to take out their bad attitudes on anyone in sight these days. Not that some of them don't have reason."

She doesn't lash out when he reaches to near touch her arm, although she wants to, although suddenly all that pent-up anger from years and years of being bid on and subject to humiliation and loss strains at the edge of its leash until the latch fastening it down groans. She only lets it show in her eyes, her lower lids lifting like the lips of a snarling dog, threatening and daring in equal measure.

But she knows she can't do anything, even if he does. If he were to put his hands all over her now, in the Peacekeeper headquarters, she would smile throughout. She would have to.

Her delusions of power don't stand that tall.

"I've been here a long time, Mr. Reagan. I'm much more acquainted with how things go than they are, but I had to learn the hard way too. They're just not quite there yet."

Cyrus doesn't react consciously to the look in her eyes. But he pulls back in spite of himself, suddenly perfectly content to put a little more space between them, and unsettled in a way he can't quite place.

Eva Salazar's history is something he knows better than most Tributes. She's been around long enough, and the circumstances of her learning the hard way, as she puts it, were... certainly special ones. She would know how things go around here. Better than many. Better than most.

"Well. That's part of a Mentor's duty, isn't it?" he asks, mildly. Not accusing, but curious. "Especially in these, our bold new Games." (It's not easy to say that with a straight face.) "It's not just teaching Tributes to become Victors anymore. It's teaching our visitors to become a part of our society." With a smile-- "Which is more than you signed on for, I'm sure."

An easy shrug, a little rueful. "But then, the new Quell's wrought a change in all our responsibilities, I think."

"It was never explicitly laid out for me when I 'signed on', no." Only Capitolites and Careers treat the conscription of Tributes as if it were a job you applied for. The District citizens may treat their Victors with grateful reverence, but they thank them for winning.

"I can imagine that all these off-worlders, with their special needs and their belief that they're above our rules, have introduced all sorts of snarls into your job."

There's a certain disdain with which she discusses Tributes, as if they're beneath her for some reason she can't articulate. The truth is there is no logical reason. She just needs to be in a position over someone, anyone. Back when she had a pet rabbit, she let it starve to death to prove she could. One week she stopped pretending to care about it enough to feed it and watched it go from healthy to malnourished to dead in a few days. Then she threw it in the yard and let the rain and weather rot it away.

She reaches into her box and takes a doughnut for herself. She chews a large bite thoughtfully, artificially slowly, as if waiting for a story.

Is it sad, that he relates to that disdain, as he hears it? Or is it just sort of predictable? The difference, of course, is that he's never had to force power over anyone. It's always just been... woven into him.

Really, it's difficult to resist launching into a story in response to that. He could start with This isn't my job - a novel-length autobiography, right there. He shouldn't be dealing with Tributes one-on-one. He should be dealing with the Districts, at the same comfortable distance he always has.

But he laughs. "Challenges. Not snarls. My job is to overcome challenges." (He glances into the doughnut box, while he's averting his eyes in the manner of one who doesn't believe what he's saying, and decides not to take another.) "Just-- some days, some Games, come with more challenges than others. I'm sure you understand. Especially now we're not rotating our challenges out every year."

"Yes. It's difficult to just get rid of a challenge with a well-timed mutt attack these days."

She raises her eyebrows, but in this case it isn't judgment - it's something that, since her Tributes transformed from terrified adolescents to stubborn offworlders, she's come to appreciate the simplicity of. How many times has she hoped for one of her current Tributes to be 'taken off her plate' and put on some laboratory mutation's?

She used to be sick with herself. She's long since burned out of guilt, though, and has been left with only apathy when she sifts through the ashes.

"Would it be presumptive of me to ask you a favor?" Of course it would be, but they're in a semi-public place. She's trusting on Cyrus' proper breeding to keep him trying to minimize conflict, to pacify her with empty, polite promises he has no intention of filling. And in that moment she'll try to put an idea in his head.

If there's one question Cyrus is growing sick of hearing, it's What happens to the Tributes who don't come back? He doesn't know. He doesn't know that anyone knows. He doesn't care. But it's just one more thing that's become more complicated since the Games changed - one more thing for the Tributes to hold against them, one more thing you just never had to think about before.

She's right, of course, that he can't flat refuse this. Of course it is is what he wants to say - she's got a brand on her face, after all, the fact that she's here, speaking with him, is presumption - but it is not his job to say so.

"...It's never presumptive to ask." He slides smoothly around making any promise, but pleasantly enough. "Besides, you've been such a help to us, Ms. Salazar-- I think you're allowed a little presumption, at this point."

It's a dance, a knife fight. Though they stand perfectly still with their doughnuts and their nice clothes, they're circling each other, afraid to expose backs and bellies. She hears that he doesn't commit to a promise; it's like a missing drumbeat in a measure. She respects it. It's deftly-handled.

"A few weeks back, I did a favor for your brother. He was in need of a Mentor's expertise regarding some unruly Tributes of his."

It goes unspoken that Stephen owes her repayment, that she hasn't called it in yet. That she could. It's her way of making a threat without the risks an overt display would entail. Cyrus can't be oblivious to how malleable his brother is; Eva picked up on it within seconds of meeting him. Familiarity may cloak flaws but it doesn't work its charms on someone as intelligent as Cyrus.

"There's a girl I care for, Eponine Thenardier. She has something of a mouth on her and worse impulses, though she's entirely harmless. I have her at my home more often than not, and for reasons of politeness, for reasons of protecting her fragile self-esteem, I don't possess the cruelty to tell her to stop coming over. But I would like authorization to install a more rigorous security system for my personal files, because I wouldn't want a little street rat going through my finances and identifiers."

Cyrus' expression goes a little flatter at the mention of Stephen. His brother is still in the family's disgrace, though no longer confined to quarters. Cyrus has long forgiven him his part in the disaster, of course - forgiveness is never a question with Stephen - but the incident, the misunderstanding, the cuff had reminded him just how malleable his brother is. How easy to procure a favor from. How unwilling to question the purpose to which his goodwill will be turned.

He's loath to offer any help to Eva Salazar, to afford her any special treatment whatsoever. ...But he's equally loath to trust Stephen to do anyone any more favors. There it is-- she's found his weak point, the softest part of him; she has only to hold the knife where it is. There's no need to drive it in.

"...I know Miss Thenardier," he says. There is history in that statement. He doesn't just know of her-- he knows her mouth and her impulses, and he is not convinced of her harmlessness. "And I certainly understand your concern. Though--" With an attempt at wry humor, at a neat deflection-- "--It is Eponine. Are you sure she's... computer-literate enough to access your personal files?" (Are you sure she's literate at all?)

Eva's a good enough actress that there's no sign on her face of the glee she gets when she sinks her claws into that tender piece of Cyrus' heart. She doesn't need to tell him with her face that she's made her threat. The subtext of her words is enough.

"I mean my physical files, Mr. Reagan. I just want authorization for biometric locks to my study. I know the girl can pick a physical one."

She's wreaking a trail of deniability for Eponine, for when everything goes down. Eva's ragged adoptive daughter will know nothing, will only know that her "Mama" goes to spend time with Wallander regularly, took a cab home drunk those nights. She'll be wreathed in the armor of Eva's secrecy.

She smirks and cajoles. "Of course, I understand if that sort of authorization isn't something that a Reagan can pull off." That's amateur bargaining, sophomoric teasing. She knows Cyrus isn't simple enough to be swayed by needling his ego. This can just be the story he tells himself later, to try and believe that she wasn't dangling Stephen over the pit.

He's trying to figure out what about this might be bigger than it looks. Favors, and the subtle art of calling them in, are so rarely about what they appear to be. There's nothing dangerous whatsoever about doing something for someone. No, the danger comes in the power that gets traded along with even the smallest favor, and Cyrus is loath to give any of it to Eva. He has no idea what she might do with it.

But there must be balance - and he has to admit that this could be worse. She might have called it in from Stephen, and he'd never have known about it. She might have asked for something more delicate, less straightforward. Can he really afford to turn her down only to make a point?

And so he laughs, a little sheepish, caught in a moment of misunderstanding. A physical lock. Of course.

"It'll require a special caucus of the Cabinet," he says dryly. "I'll have to put it to a vote. President Snow himself will have to sign off on it." Hyperbole, as joking reply to the implication that there is anything he can't do. "I imagine I won't be able to get it to you for... oh... two days?"

--And, there. That's the agreement. "So, if you think you can keep Miss Thenardier's paws out of your study until Saturday..."

"Thank you. I appreciate it very much."

She imagines herself a cat, holding a dying mouse between her paws, sinking a claw in here, slowly. The organs move around like little ball bearings in a squishy sack of blood and skin. The prey wriggles.

She knows it's a deluded fantasy. She can only picture herself as having any power if she strips away the context she exists in; the truth is that even though she's found an upper hand on Cyrus now, he could make a quiet phonecall tonight and have her house bulldozed and her existence denied. Claim she fell asleep with a lit cigarette and set her mattress ablaze. Have her disappear and put out a comment to Panem Nightly that the Peacekeepers are likely looking hard for her, but they suspect the worse, that they'll find a body at best.

But in this small victory she is the cat, and it's all she can do not to lick her chops.

"I'm sure I can manage it a few days. She does get around, you know. She has so many gentleman callers." Eva smirks as if she's making a sly joke at Eponine's expense. "I suppose she does take after me. Now, I don't want to take up more of your time..."

She moves to leave, to finish getting checked in and to go see Wallander with a box of doughnuts slightly lightened.

Cyrus is not accustomed to feeling like prey. He is not accustomed to standing on the inside of the trap. It doesn't matter how small the trap is, how benign the predator. It doesn't matter whether the cat is collared and leashed. It is the principle of claws and teeth that makes him squirm and sweat in the cage; it is the implication of the hunt that might have been that makes his skin feel tight with helpless fury.

He laughs at Eva's joke, politely enough; and he steps into her path before she goes.

Lets her stop in her tracks for him, just for a second. Makes of himself an obstacle, and in the process, a reminder: What just happened was an anomaly. I will never again move for you.

He smiles at her, swift and polite and too close, and plucks one more doughnut from the box. "For later," he says. Lingers a second in her space, because he can. And then steps back.

"Good luck with the investigation, Ms. Salazar." It's easier to look down on her from a few steps away. His parting smile is almost friendly. "My people will be in contact with you."

He gives her a nod; slings his jacket over his shoulder, and leaves the station.

Edited (TYPOS YO) 2014-11-20 14:01 (UTC)

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I Will Contain You, Then Cast You Away [Semi-Open]

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