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)
thecapitol2013-02-14 05:45 pm
iselldrugstothecommunity) wrote in thecapitol2013-02-14 05:45 pm
Entry tags:
Leaving No Signs of Pain, Your Wounds to Mend [Closed]
WHO | Howard and Eponine, Howard and Sigma
WHAT | Howard reunites with the allies who didn't kill him.
WHEN | Week 5
WHERE | Tribute Center
WARNINGS / NOTES | Memories of torture/death.
There's one moment between dying and dead where he doesn't want to wake up, because the pain goes away. The puncture wounds stop stabbing, his head stops throbbing, the cold ceases to bite, and he thinks for a moment that it would be okay to be like this forever. But he does wake up, with a headache and a general sense of malaise. They revived him.
He doesn't leave his room for over a day, too scared to go anywhere but under the covers of his bed. He doesn't sleep, nor does he eat, nor does he get up to use the bathroom. He stays there, mostly in the fetal position, hungry, holding it, thirsty, shaking. He knows Alpha shares a Suite with him. He doesn't know if Aunamee does.
He can't face the television screens out there. He knows his painful, ugly death at Aunamee's hands will be fine entertainment, and he doesn't want to hear himself screaming again. He can still hear it in his own head. He runs his hands over the skin stretched over his ribs, looking for injuries that were fixed before he woke up. He keeps licking the inside of his teeth to remind himself he hasn't bitten his tongue off for good, he keeps spitting into the wastebin next to the bed because his mouth tastes like blood. When an Avox comes in to try and deliver chocolates, he bursts into tears.
When he finally does gather the strength to get up, he's trembling less from fear than exhaustion, and the blood rushing to his head makes him so dizzy he needs to steady himself with the bedstand. He listens under his door, but it's the dead of night and no one else seems to be awake, so he ventures out into the living room. The idea of running into Alpha chills him. He keeps alert, moving as quietly as he can to the elevator. The television in the living room is playing out Sherlock getting sliced in half. Howard looks away.
There are two people he needs to see, at least. Sigma and Eponine. So he visits their floors, the third suite and the tenth. He doesn't know how well either will take to a light knock at their door at some ungodly hour, but he doesn't know what else to do and he's afraid to be out and about when Draco or Aunamee or Alpha might see him.
At each door, he knocks lightly three times, and waits, arms wrapped around his skinny body in the plush snakeskin-print Capitol pajamas.
WHAT | Howard reunites with the allies who didn't kill him.
WHEN | Week 5
WHERE | Tribute Center
WARNINGS / NOTES | Memories of torture/death.
There's one moment between dying and dead where he doesn't want to wake up, because the pain goes away. The puncture wounds stop stabbing, his head stops throbbing, the cold ceases to bite, and he thinks for a moment that it would be okay to be like this forever. But he does wake up, with a headache and a general sense of malaise. They revived him.
He doesn't leave his room for over a day, too scared to go anywhere but under the covers of his bed. He doesn't sleep, nor does he eat, nor does he get up to use the bathroom. He stays there, mostly in the fetal position, hungry, holding it, thirsty, shaking. He knows Alpha shares a Suite with him. He doesn't know if Aunamee does.
He can't face the television screens out there. He knows his painful, ugly death at Aunamee's hands will be fine entertainment, and he doesn't want to hear himself screaming again. He can still hear it in his own head. He runs his hands over the skin stretched over his ribs, looking for injuries that were fixed before he woke up. He keeps licking the inside of his teeth to remind himself he hasn't bitten his tongue off for good, he keeps spitting into the wastebin next to the bed because his mouth tastes like blood. When an Avox comes in to try and deliver chocolates, he bursts into tears.
When he finally does gather the strength to get up, he's trembling less from fear than exhaustion, and the blood rushing to his head makes him so dizzy he needs to steady himself with the bedstand. He listens under his door, but it's the dead of night and no one else seems to be awake, so he ventures out into the living room. The idea of running into Alpha chills him. He keeps alert, moving as quietly as he can to the elevator. The television in the living room is playing out Sherlock getting sliced in half. Howard looks away.
There are two people he needs to see, at least. Sigma and Eponine. So he visits their floors, the third suite and the tenth. He doesn't know how well either will take to a light knock at their door at some ungodly hour, but he doesn't know what else to do and he's afraid to be out and about when Draco or Aunamee or Alpha might see him.
At each door, he knocks lightly three times, and waits, arms wrapped around his skinny body in the plush snakeskin-print Capitol pajamas.
no subject
Eponine bursts into cackles of laughter. "Howard, you have more about you than I thought. This is what my Pa and any of the other Patron Minette would do, so. They would say, 'it is not safe, so we will put Azelma or 'Ponine there - and of course Azelma would cry, so it would be I.It is good, I suppose you think this way. It shows you know how to survive."
She grins over at him, hiding her worry. She has no intention of dying here.
"I will take a knife to bed with me. I do not mind - but I will not die!"
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He manages, just barely, to keep his voice in a whisper, but it's thick and full of urgency.
"He's got nothing personal against you, so I thought - and since you don't want to be here with the the Inspector..."
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"And neither did M'sieur Malfoy before it is that you slaughter him and declare it for me."
She reaches out, to pat Howard's knee in a 'comforting' gesture, all the while shaking her head.
"It doesn't matter to me, Howard. It is right that you should be safe. You are right. I would rather not room with the man who put me in jail - so you are helping me too, no? Now, come. You will show me your room, and then you will come back here tonight and I will stay in your bed. Yes?"
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"Eponine, I'm serious. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not that kind of person, okay? Please believe me." He looks as if he'll take anything else as some sort of deep personal rejection.
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She picks at her freshly polished toe nails; Valeria is RIGHT on her now. "Perhaps not, Monsieur. But it is good to be realisitic. I do not like such pretense. Here we all hurt a lot, no? Perhas you will not mean to... but as I hurt you in the arena when I died, perhaps you will hurt me when you do not mean it?"
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He looks up at her door. "Want to raid the fridge? I haven't eaten nothing since I got back." he says without all that much enthusiasm.
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She doesn't want food. For once iin her life, the thought of food makes her feel sick. It's the downside of binging on cherries and caramels. Or at least, the drugged kind.
"Come. We will feed you now. I do not think we will have to steal though. Here, we just have food, remember?"
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Curled up as if he could make the world go away by ignoring it. He gets up. He doesn't notice that she doesn't seem keen on the idea.
"Yeah, we just have it provided to us. Like it's free, almost. Come on, you can pick your favorites, you know I'll eat anything."
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After a minute of trying to work it out in her head, Eponine eventually says,
"Howard, sometimes you are stupid. There is no point in staying in bed. Why would you do that? It makes things worse, don't you see? You think and think on it and then everything gets bigger. You should just carry on as normal, Howard. It goes away then. And you will not be acting as a child does, which is a good thing."
Sometimes, she wonders if Howard REALLY has experienced hardships. His reactions seem to her weak and she just can't understand how he has survived so long if his way of dealing is curling up and thinking all about it. When she compares Howard to Gavroche, the little boy has a better light in her eyes - and that doesn't seem quite right.
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"I carry on as normal and come through when it counts, Epsy. At least I don't run off and abandon people and suicide out. When I'm back here in the Capitol, it doesn't really matter, does it?"
And that's the hard part, honestly - adjusting between the extremes, between survival one day and luxury the next, back and forth, until they start to blend together as one.
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"Did I not save you, Howard? Did I not give you my clothes so you woul win. Did I not persuade a man to send bread to you from me? No?"
Her voice is quiet, and she shrugs in defeat.
"Easy, yes. A suicide... Murder. But why should it not be so, when I came to a place where they give me food and clothes? I am not pretending now; it is obvious, is it not? You go to a nice place any way you can. It was not a suicide. I could have lasted longer. But my clothes gave you a chance."
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He puts his hands up and shrugs, lets it go. They're not going to agree on this, and she won't do it again, but the idea that he's incompetent and like a child rankles. He lasted longer than most of the competitors, didn't he? It certainly wasn't because of Eponine's extra clothing that he lasted that long. He doesn't like to think that the only reason he didn't die sooner was because of the kindness of others with no regard to his skills, his patience, his skepticism or his intelligence.
He holds a hand out to help her get up. "Come on, I don't want us to be mad at each other. We're friends."
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She looks at him in astonishment. She hadn't realised they had been on the verge of falling out.
"Yes we are... but Howard. It does make me worry that you will go mad if you cannot stand even this, you know? I don't want you to be hurt or go mad. They lock you up if you're mad, you know? And lead you out in chains to dance for the people."
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'Even' this. As if being killed and being brought back to life to do it all over again is something typical, something minor. Howard squeezes her hand. "I survived worse, Epsy. I just needed a day to myself. I'm fine now."
It's a lie, but he expects that whatever's fractured and broken in his spirit now was cracked long before he got here. But the fridge is full, and he pulls out ice creams and some sort of custard, and alcohol for Eponine and hands it to her. "At least we aren't starving."
It's touching that she worries.
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She shakes her head. "He will hate me now. It is right that he does though..."
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He wants to say that she shouldn't worry, because Sigma wouldn't hold it against her, but the memory of Alpha rears up fresh and ugly. It's not so easy to forgive theft here.
He puts the food back in the fridge and gets a thing of yogurt for himself, to go with the custard.
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She raises her eyebrows at yoghurt and custard, but she had taken to eating cheese dipped in chocolate spread so she's not exactly in a position to judge.
"I didn't mean to scare him - threaten him. He'll think that I am a bad girl now - a horrible girl. Maybe I am, if I can do that - you see?" She indicates to her bedside table where Sigma's cash card thingy sits.
"I took it and I asked for more. I told him I would kill him if he didn't - or that Montparnasse would kill me. He will think I am mad. I liked him, too. He is a nice man, Sigma."
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"He's...I mean, I stabbed him in the arm before we met. He's understanding. And you going and dying like that-" Howard frowns a bit because it's still a sore spot for him- "you doing that made a statement he's not just going to ignore. It was meaningful, you know?"
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She leads the way back into her bedroom, and once more sits down on the floor, drawing her knees up.
"What do you mean, statement? That I am a whore?" She laughs bitterly. "I was not thinking of cameras. I just wanted to come back here and for you to be warmer. Howard, I do not care; I don't want to play."
no subject