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)
thecapitol2013-02-17 11:18 pm
iselldrugstothecommunity) wrote in thecapitol2013-02-17 11:18 pm
Entry tags:
Everybody Knows This Ain't Heaven [Open]
WHO| Howard and OPEN
WHAT| Howard tries to prepare for the next arena.
WHERE| The Speakeasy
WHEN| A couple days after Valentine's day.
WARNINGS| Post-trauma, so some recollections of death.
In a way, Howard already misses the arena. Not the killing, of course, but the solitude, the way he spent so many days there in relative isolation, alert but alone, catching birds and melting water, ears pricked for every sound. There's no possible way to do that in the Capitol; if he jumped at every sound, he'd never stop startling. As it stands, he can't shake the idea that he should be listening for something, should be aware of someone sneaking up on him through the crowds that he can't hear over the white noise.
He's taken to shadows, to dark corners, to trying to exist as part of the periphery rather than in the middle of any attention. Before curfew he goes out into the Capitol and tries to find alleys to hide in, quiet locations, places away from televisions and radios. He's taken a liking to the pitch dark restaurant. After curfew he hides in his room with locks and a chair lodged under the door, or tries to visit Eponine. It's as if he's trying to lift himself away from this world, to become so convincing that he's not there that eventually it becomes true.
But spending all this time hiding doesn't actually accomplish anything recuperative. He's worn out. He spends so much time looking over his shoulder that he can't sleep at the Tribute Center. He has dark circles under his eyes and sores from biting his lips, including one that travels all the way up to the scoop above his mouth. He jumps at loud noises and stumbles when he's not staring directly at his feet as he walks.
Death was hard, but rebirth has not been kind to him. He wishes he could turn it off, banish it to the arena. He wishes he could trust the other Tributes to do the same, but he knows none of this will just be forgotten when he looks at Draco again, or Alpha. Aunamee.
Eventually he finds himself at the Speakeasy. He gets a non-alcoholic drink and finds a booth in the back. He has a book with him, Basic First Aid in the Field. If he's going to be prepared for next time, he'll need to be self-sufficient, and useful enough to keep alive for anyone whose graces he relies on. He goes over the book, getting visibly agitated and frustrated as his scattered mind fails to retain information as fast as he wants it to.
WHAT| Howard tries to prepare for the next arena.
WHERE| The Speakeasy
WHEN| A couple days after Valentine's day.
WARNINGS| Post-trauma, so some recollections of death.
In a way, Howard already misses the arena. Not the killing, of course, but the solitude, the way he spent so many days there in relative isolation, alert but alone, catching birds and melting water, ears pricked for every sound. There's no possible way to do that in the Capitol; if he jumped at every sound, he'd never stop startling. As it stands, he can't shake the idea that he should be listening for something, should be aware of someone sneaking up on him through the crowds that he can't hear over the white noise.
He's taken to shadows, to dark corners, to trying to exist as part of the periphery rather than in the middle of any attention. Before curfew he goes out into the Capitol and tries to find alleys to hide in, quiet locations, places away from televisions and radios. He's taken a liking to the pitch dark restaurant. After curfew he hides in his room with locks and a chair lodged under the door, or tries to visit Eponine. It's as if he's trying to lift himself away from this world, to become so convincing that he's not there that eventually it becomes true.
But spending all this time hiding doesn't actually accomplish anything recuperative. He's worn out. He spends so much time looking over his shoulder that he can't sleep at the Tribute Center. He has dark circles under his eyes and sores from biting his lips, including one that travels all the way up to the scoop above his mouth. He jumps at loud noises and stumbles when he's not staring directly at his feet as he walks.
Death was hard, but rebirth has not been kind to him. He wishes he could turn it off, banish it to the arena. He wishes he could trust the other Tributes to do the same, but he knows none of this will just be forgotten when he looks at Draco again, or Alpha. Aunamee.
Eventually he finds himself at the Speakeasy. He gets a non-alcoholic drink and finds a booth in the back. He has a book with him, Basic First Aid in the Field. If he's going to be prepared for next time, he'll need to be self-sufficient, and useful enough to keep alive for anyone whose graces he relies on. He goes over the book, getting visibly agitated and frustrated as his scattered mind fails to retain information as fast as he wants it to.
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“But…alive again?” R struggles with the concept. “Better.” He touches his chest again, where his heart sits. Used to sit. Now it's just meat. “Beating.”
Maybe he isn't getting this. Things like the strange tightness in Howard’s voice can't click; R can sense something there, like he can tell the difference between a Living’s scared voice and speaking voice, but he can’t put himself in his shoes, not really. For a corpse, being cut open or stabbed or getting your leg blown off doesn’t seem like it’s that big a deal. You maybe feel sorry for another zombie who can’t even shuffle, but that’s on a good day: other days you don’t feel anything at all. Howard, though, doesn’t have the same outlook on life (or unlife? What do you call it when you come back but not dead?). What then?
R tries to stall by really, really looking at the other Tribute. Dark skin, lots of fidgeting, his black eyes blinking rapidly. You know, Living who don’t get sleep are easier to take down, Howard. The thought wanders up out of the murk like that's gonna help. He’s so not saying that. For a second he’s glad he can’t even if he wanted to. Call it a hunch, but R thinks that won't fly.
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"Yeah. Dead, and then alive again. I guess death isn't permanent here." He bites his lip, muscles in his face tightening as if he's suddenly remembered who he's talking to. "Present company excluded, I guess. Sorry."
He doesn't know if R takes offense to that, because it's really hard to tell how much R's actually picking up and if that blank face is that his face has atrophied, or just that he doesn't care about much. He hopes it's the latter, because getting on the bad side of zombies probably isn't good.
He swings his feet a bit; if he stretches his ankles out the tips of his toes can scrape the floor which, he realizes now, must be some sort of fine marble. Like everything in the Capitol, overly expensive and lavish, everything a little bit too big, not just physically but visually.
"Do zombies, um..." Howard chews on his thumb knuckle and glances at the kitchen, wondering why it's taking so long. It's been almost a whole minute, and expecting food and having it not there upsets him. He tries to ignore it and turn back to the conversation at hand. "I don't know if you'd really get what I'm saying. Do zombies feel pain?"
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He watches as Howard talks, fascinated. One thing about the Living is they’re…messy. R doesn’t mean when zombies pull them apart in a feeding frenzy (he has watch it during those, by the way: he got nailed in the eye by a flying kidney last time). What R means by messy is the way their faces scrunch up, how they leak fluid out the eyes and mouth and nose when they’re scared. How they quiver. The Dead don’t do that. It's the new cable. R realizes after a long second he’s staring at Howard again – yeah, yeah, not helping the creepy thing, gotta work on that – and almost reluctantly he drags himself back to the words. The “sorry” throws him off.
R shrugs at the apology. “Engh,” he says, resigned. “Life.”
Un-life. Whatever.
Howard proves he’s like every human by fidgeting around some more. Is that something he’ll get out of his system? How does this even work? R hasn’t had that much prolonged contact with humans – this is the most he ever had, ignoring Julie, ignoring all the memories he steals when he feeds. R almost feels nervous watching Howard being nervous.
“Uhgghhhh…” R draws out his uh in a long, thoughtful wheeze. “Don’t…don’t know.”
He needs to word that better. He could, if sentences didn’t need battle plans every time. How can R explain what it’s like to wake up dead? That being stabbed or shot registers and doesn’t at the same time: he’d rather not be shot, he’d rather clean off the gore, but at the same time, oh well? He exists. R’s face starts to pinch as the gears in his head chug along, trying to form a train of thought. How Howard can think all this stuff up so fast makes his own head hurt. Also he’s impressed. Smart guy.
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So he giggles again, though it catches in his throat like a bird escaping a cat and turns into a bit of a cough by the end.
"Yeah? Do you remember pain from before you were, you know? A zombie?"
He waits for a response. He's alright being patient for most things, honestly. The FAYZ didn't exactly provide a ton of entertainment that wasn't hard work, running for your life or reading, and after dark you couldn't do the first or the last anyway. Howard's very good at sitting, concentrating on something, although he needs to keep his mind busy so he starts folding an origami something out of the sole non-wet napkin on the table. He tries to remember how to make a fox, but it's looking more like a weird paper triangle now, maybe because you're supposed to use dollar bills and not square napkins to make foxes.
Furthermore, he's waiting for a cue that he's overstepped his bounds, and needs to shut the hell up. His eyes keep searching R's face - which, he realizes, looks perpetually like someone who's missed a step coming down the stairs - for that signal, for that sign to backpedal and apologize and save himself. The last time he didn't back down, he had a knife stabbing his upper back within seconds.
He doesn't want to think about that. He glances between R and the FailFox, starts unfolding it.
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R stares back at Howard for a long moment. Personal question, but honestly, it’s one every Dead asks themselves. Maybe they can’t talk these days and maybe they don’t need to. R saw it in their eyes, the way their mouths worked like some of them were still wondering why they trip over their dragging intestines. Asking what was next. If there was even anything tomorrow. No wonder some of them go native with the Boney route early.
“Only remem…” R rubs at his thigh unconsciously. It’s been years since he thought back to his first day dead. Memory lane, big time. “Bite. My leg.” This gets another shrug, not only resigned but also uncomfortable. “Gug-girl was there. Hurt when – ”
He cuts himself off then. A memory claws up: the pretty girl lying next to him with a bullet in her head, the Dead surrounding them (double-dead – R doesn’t know if he’d killed them or not). Kicking angrily at one’s skull until he forgot why as whatever memories he woke up with dribbled away. Wandering off without looking back. R wants to explain how it hurt, that it was the last time he’d felt pain, real pain, until he met Julie and made the mistake of chewing up her ex. Shifting in his chair uneasily, R wishes he had another menu to hide behind, except he had to be a genius and give it back to the waiter because he isn’t forward thinking. Next time he hoards it for questions like these. Sometimes a shrug doesn’t do it.
Something like emotion passes across the zombie’s face as R breaks eye contact with Howard. Is that what he meant?
R wonders if he feels sorry for Howard. He hasn’t worked it out yet. Luckily they’re saved by the waiter finally returning. R is so relieved he practically snatches the bleeding steak off the tray and pulls it to himself like a shield. Eating, at least, is simple.
no subject
Eating is simple. Howard can appreciate that. And if R wants to eat with his hands, it actually offers Howard a little respite in that he can do the same, rather than forcing himself through the paces of proper table manners. Howard takes pieces of hash browns with his fingers, swallows a link of sausage whole, downs his glass of orange juice in one gulp, drinks syrup straight from the dispenser.
It's easy, to lose yourself in food, in the security it brings. To remind himself he's not in the FAYZ, not in the Arena, not starving, not sick, not bleeding. The flavors blot out the people in the periphery regarding them both with disgusted fascination.
And while he eats he consider what R said, the expression on his face, something that was almost like a cringe instead of the unfocused, startled expression settled into R's features.
"Do you think it's easier, being dead?" he asks after he's polished off his plate and is circling things with his fingertip on the dessert menu.
no subject
They eat in silence.
Or what counts as silence for R: the zombie chews with his mouth open, grunting around mouthfuls, Howard crinkling napkins and motoring through his hash browns like they could run away. Attitude like that, he’d make a good zombie. R’s face goes slack again as he concentrates on the steak. Blood, red like a human’s and nowhere as satisfying, spills down his chin and drips onto the dress shirt. Maybe it’s a nice cut of meat, from some spoiled cow with nothing better to do than chew grass all day long. R vaguely remembers what a cow looks like. He does remember that’s where steaks come from. R shovels another piece in, trying not to get his fingers caught in the bars and raising his eyes to study the Living across from him.
Howard’s meal looks…not gross, just not there. R stares at it and it’s like looking at the furniture. Part of the scenery. Not sure why Howard’s so gung-ho about it, but okay.
R is looking longingly at his empty plate when Howard’s question brings his head bobbing back up.
“What?” R’s eyebrows scrunch together in surprise. “Dead. Like…us?”
He needs to think that one over. It’s a difficult question, really hard, another Howard hard-hitter because he's king of stuff like that. By the time they take away the plates and the waiter is heading over to ask about dessert, R might have something for his new friend.
R rubs some of the blood off his mouth with the back of his hand. “Maybe…at first?” R thinks what un-life was like before Julie, then after Julie. For once in his life there was a line there, something different enough to have a Before and After. “Not – not better forever. Stay alive.”
There. R reviews the words, tries to check his grammar – what he remembers of grammar – and decides it’ll work. Howard might make a good zombie. It’s still not something to shoot for. He wants to tell the other guy maybe he should aim higher. Be a lawyer. Get enough sleep. Probably should stop talking to dead people, too, only R keeps his mouth shut on that one.
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Then he orders himself a whole apple pie and some raw bacon for R. Figures strips'll be easier to get through the grate.
As he watches R struggle with the muzzle, he places exactly why it's there in the first place, and were he any other person it might quell his appetite. As it does he just tries not to think about it. Cannibalism is something that bothers him on a deep level when he isn't just joking about it - jokes keep it light, keep it at arm's distance, up in the air buoyed by humor instead of sinking to the depths of his mind. And R's joked with him about it so far. He thinks if R had been humorless about it, Howard would have had to leave the diner by now.
"I don't know. Dead not like you. Do you ever think it'd be easier to just be like, dead and not reanimated, with your brain just shut down like click, like a computer, like...?" Howard makes a gesture with his finger, like turning off a light switch, and closes his eyes from a moment too long to just be blinking. He makes a little pop sound with his lips.
Because he wonders, sometimes. He wonders a lot, if it'd be sweet relief or if there wouldn't even be enough...enough for there to be a sense of relief, or loss, or regret, or anything messy and emotional like that.
And if zombies still feel pain...
It's not as if he's suicidal. He's just an escapist, and inquisitive, and the grass is greener on the other side always: living or dead, living or undead. It's the human condition to see something you don't possess and say 'I bet that's better than what I have now'. Howard's a capital offender, although he seems to take R's advice to heart.
"But yeah, no offense, I wouldn't want enough awareness left to realize I'm dead. I think I'd get really frustrated with the, I don't know, moving slow sort of thing. I mean, I'm really twitchy and you don't twitch much." As if to prove his point, he tries to stop kicking his heels against his seat for all of a minute, and then gives up. "I like staying alive, I think. I'm not that bad at it, usually."
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Watching Howard lick the plate clean, thorough, really thorough, reminds R all over again of the other zombies back home. Thorough is good. Thorough gets you the most bang for your buck. Clean off the plate, all of it, and it’ll be good for a few days, easy. Howard decides to go and clarify things – which, by Howard-speak, apparently means he only makes it even more complicated. R suspects he would make a great professor, whatever that is. R swears he can feel his brain, a dead dry thing rattling around his skull, starting to shrivel in on itself even more as it tries to digest all these hard concepts the human throws at him.
Okay, so Howard means double-dead, not Dead. Not a zombie. R thinks he can follow him.
“Easy,” R echoes. “Maybe.” His head dips in a nod. It is easy in theory. He might even be jealous on a particularly self-aware day, ,but he’s not entirely sure, either. Maybe he’s not a good zombie. A real zombie would be thinking about that next meal. Talking with Howard, hanging with Julie, makes R suspect he could do way better in that department. The weird thing is realizing he might not want to. Maybe he’s okay with being the weirdo. Or he was, before he blurted the truth to Julie. Now? He’s not sure.
Thankfully Howard is distracting, and not only because R thinks about all those memories locked inside his head. The guy looks like he’d be interesting to digest. R swallows. No eating friends. Rule number one.
“But…” R searches for the syntax, the words, feels them slipping away, grabbing at them before they vanish. “Alive or Dead. No…pro-mise.” No guarantee you couldn’t end up in that half-way point. Shoot yourself in the head and you could still miss. Staying alive was the best bet. “You’re good.”
R tries to look encouraging, as a friend should, tries to smile. The corners of his mouth twitch. You’re still alive and breathing and that’s awesome, he wants to say. That’s like half the battle right there, buddy. Instead a helpful croak comes out of his vocal chords, the waiter shooting them a look as he arrives with both apple pie and bacon.
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"I don't know if I'm good." Or even okay, but that's normal after an Arena, he thinks. He's pretty sure dying horribly and coming back to life would mess with most people's moods. It would probably be weird if it didn't.
"You, um. Are you in the Games too, I guess? Because they're camera-ing you as much as they are me and..." It's one of those things, Howard noticing the little stuff. Mostly he picks up on who's a Tribute or not by seeing the way they carry themselves, by seeing the same signs of exhaustion or, after the last Arena, looking for warmth. The same jadedness and the way they stare at everyone around them as if they were aliens.
But R has one of those faces like he's creepy-staring at everyone, not just Capitol citizens and not just Tributes, and god only knows if zombies feel tired, and as such Howard's looking to the Capitol citizens like some sort of mirror to tell him about his new 'friend'. His dead friend. His friend-dead-dead.
The pie arrives, and Howard eats it with his hands, because fuck it. Sticky apple filling gets all in the cracks and cuts in his fingers and it feels good, warm and almost burning in his hands. It must be fresh from the over. He eats handfuls.
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“They said…” R pulls his words together, grabbing at them like a scavenger in a gun shop. Crap, he can’t remember all the details, he realizes. He’d been too busy eyeing the guard’s arm to pay attention. “Tri-bute. Ice. Had…fur in my teeth.”
He hadn’t liked that part. Most of the winters back home he hadn’t been stuck in a snow field, white washing everything out into flat nothing that felt like it could burn straight into your eye sockets. Usually what happened was he stayed inside the airport, felt his joints and tendons stiffen up more than usual but that was it. Huddling in there with the other zombies. Privately glad his eyes hadn’t frozen open. Not exactly a holiday, but it’s better than taking his chances out there.
R isn’t done. He presses on, stubborn, as he watches Howard dig into the pie. Yellow, slimy apple bits and juices smear all over his hands and mouth. Those colors are all wrong, R wants to say, they should be red and black and actual food. The yellow just looks freaky. R's expression slowly shifts to a classic yuck-face.
“Games are wa - ” R barely pauses, because this is one of the things he does feel strongly about – strong as in feeling about it any which way, enough to have outdated things like opinions. “Waste.” The zombie even nods.
As for the cameras, R doesn’t care. They’re there. And? Zombies don’t have that whole “privacy is sacred” thing like Howard and the rest of his gang. Apparently what gets R up in arms, as much as he can even get that way, is the idea of wasting food. The whole moral thing about having people fight each other to the death doesn’t seem to register, wandering around unable to click. R glances up as one of the Capitol citizens approaches with an autograph book (she wisely stays out of range of both Howard’s apple pie and R’s hands).
“Howard, I-I’m a big fan of yours! The way you’re so…vulnerable, it’s…” The girl looks ready to swoon – or like she wants to swoon, if it wasn’t so hard to ignore Howard’s table manners. “May I have an autograph?”
no subject
He has no idea what to make about the fur thing. Maybe R hadn't brushed in a while. Who knows.
He raises an eyebrow, though. He couldn't agree more with R's statement, although it doesn't immediately click that R's talking about cannibalism and not about all the money and time and effort that's being put into creating giant landscapes full of booby-traps and cameras and microphones. And he likes that about R, he seems the efficient sort. Possibly because he lacks the motor skills to have the luxury of being careless with words, with energy, with anything.
"No kidding. You could run a small country based on one game alone. You could-"
But then they're interrupted by this girl, this young woman, coming up and asking for an autograph. Howard blinks at her, convinced for a moment she's a hallucination and he's finally fallen off the cliff of sleep deprivation and into the hole of lunacy. There's no way, no way-
Of course there's a way. The Capitol is stupid. He looks at the girl and tries to figure out her age, and she looks like she's mid-twenties, and that makes him shudder a little, because he doesn't want to think that getting mutilated on the ice is going to launch him into being some sort of Bieber figure here. That's horrifying.
He looks at his hands and the food there, flinches at the word 'vulnerable' which, while too many letters to be a dirty word, is tantamount to a diagnosis of weakness. "Um, kind of got my hands full right now..."
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It’s like that steak didn’t happen.
This isn’t like with Julie and Howard, somehow off-limits in his mind. This girl is fair game, especially looking that good. It’s no promise the brain is the same quality as, say, Perry’s, but you never know. R’s fingers flex where they rest on the table.
“Oh! Of course. I could wait, or, I could…maybe…join you?” Howard’s biggest fan looks almost hopefully at the chair next to him. The fact it puts her next to R doesn’t cross her mind. “You’re very hard to track down, you know.”
She sounds almost like she’s scolding Howard for ducking out of a date, not busy dying out on the ice. The more R hears of her voice, high-pitched, lilting like Effie’s in that way that somehow grates on his ear-drums, the more he starts to think eating her would be doing everyone a favor. Getting her through the bars, though, and not splashing Howard with gore at the same time, is enough to make him pause. Logistics. Not his thing.
no subject
His first instinct is to be outright rude to her. Of course he doesn't want company. Can't she see that he's eating dessert, finding solace in the monosyllabic groans of the undead rather than dealing with other living human beings? If he wanted to cruise for chicks he'd have gone somewhere besides the furthest booth from the door, hunkered over his pie.
And, he figures, she doesn't seem to have the entitlement I-own-your-life vibe that Howard's seen from the Sponsors on the networks, so she probably isn't anyone important who's going to send him goodies.
He swallows and turns back to his pie, eyes narrowed and a sneer on his lips. "Whatever. My friend Rob here could use some dessert."
no subject
At first what Howard says goes over both their heads. The girl freezes, surprised, with her autograph book half-extended toward Howard.
"Rob..?" She turns to R, only just now seeing him, and she doesn't recognize him at first. Not when he'd been a late arrival to the Arena and he was bundled up in all those clothes. "What?"
You know what? He's hungry enough to put Observe the Humans on hold. Howard can find another girl to mess around with. R decides to reach out and try to paw at the Capitol citizen, his cold fingers closing over her wrist. The girl skitters back and bumps into another table, swatting at him with her autograph book as recognition finally dawns on her face. Unlike Howard, he probably didn't leave a big impression on her, unless you count trying to chew up wolves and losing body parts in the Arena. Her face pulls in disgust as she maneuvers herself to stand closer to Howard - whether it's silently asking from protection or using her favorite Tribute as a shield is up in the air.
"I-I think you should find better friends, Howard!" The girl tries to regain her composure, her voice shrill. "You're better than this. Have some class."
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Hey, it worked, didn't it? Don't know your romantic prowess, R.Howard takes that as his cue to actually get mad. It's not that R's his friend - he just met the guy - but he doesn't take kindly to people telling him who to hang out with, or what sort of people he's too good for or not good enough for. It rubs the wrong way, and given that the entire Capitol seems to be exercise in grating his last shred of patience. it's enough to make his frayed nerves snap.
Besides, R's a nice guy. Good conversation, for a given value of conversation. Lets him talk about death and sadness. Hasn't tried to eat him yet.
He stands up, hitting his hipbone slightly (and painfully) on the edge of the table, which just irritates him more. He keeps his hands in front of him because they're still sticky with pie. The girl's at least half a foot taller than him, but something about the Arena, as much as it's stripped away at his sense of security, as much as it's made him scared and haunted and small, has in some strange way emboldened him.
He's been stabbed. He's had a spear punched through his parka. He's felt blood from his own body and his ally's and his enemy's soaking his clothing. He's not afraid of some fancy-haired Capitol girl with an autograph booklet and artificially-whitened teeth.
Some deep part of him knows he's being disproportionate, that it's not her fault that he's scared and angry (and scared because he's angry, and angry because he's scared) all the time he's here, and that he hasn't slept in days, and that he can feel his pulse pounding in his neck more often than he can't. But for a moment, he just wanted to sit down and eat comforting food with his new buddy the dead guy, who's been nothing but perfectly civil, and Howard doesn't want to be reasonable about the fact that the Capitol won't give him time to heal.
"You know what, no. I like hanging out with Rob. Rob's been a lot better company than you have, bitch."
And he reaches over and smears the mess on his hands onto the front of her shirt.
no subject
Come tomorrow, some of Howard's ratings may have gone down. He won't get any gifts from her neighborhood next Arena.
R watches for a few seconds longer, fascinated. So that's what total rejection looks likes.
He turns back to Howard, coming up with a single word that somehow sounds disapproving. "Uncool."
Maybe he's too dead to get offended. R has no idea. It's hard to bother when half the time your mind washes in and out on itself like the tide. What he does know, in the here and now before he forgets, is that he thinks Howard went too far. Zombies aren't high class; the Living girl was right on that front. R tries to frown at his new friend, but his corpse only manages an awkward twitch and starts drifting slightly to the side like the chair wants to shift out under him. R lists to the left to compensate, his colorless eyes fixed on the other Tribute. At least he hasn't told Howard to go apologize.
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And then a switch flicks inside, and his face deadens. This is petty. This is pointless. He's helpless here and he's helpless in the Arena, and arguing about his feeble displays of resistance with a zombie just spirals upwards into patently ludicrous.
"She was insulting you."
He says it as if it explains everything. R's with him. He thinks back to hanging out with Orc at school, listening to other kids whisper about the fat, ugly, stupid bully kid, and he passed the message on to Orc back then and pointed out the perpetrators so they could get their asses beat, because it wasn't fair for them to go without comeuppance for their arrogance, for their intolerance.
None of it's fair.
He crouches own and picks up the piece of crust that fell to the floor, eats that, ignores that it has a piece of hair on it. Then he sits back up on the booth, palms down on the seat between his knees, shoulders hunched, looking off to the side as if eye contact is painful. He tells himself this is dumb to be angry about, a dumb thing to be hurt over, but he's still angry enough that his blood feels like an electric wire coiled through his neck and gut.
"You didn't deserve it."
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“I don’t…” R forces the words out as usual. He’s doing a better job doing that than working out this guy’s weird reasoning. “…feel ins…insulted.”
Really, he doesn’t. Eating people isn’t something he’s ever been proud of. The rotting and thinking about littering body parts all over the place part isn’t a walk in the park either. He can see why the Living girl was grossed out – he’d be too. But it’s who R is now, the only thing he remembers. You gotta live with being dead.
R shrugs. Without Julie here to keep an eye on that, R plans to keep shrugging for all he’s worth. Besides, what can you say to what just went down? A shrug is the best answer he can think of. The zombie stares right at Howard, unblinking, eyes wide. Before Howard was more than happy to look him in the face, something R liked because for a second it made him feel human. Now the other Tribute looks off to the side like it’s awkward, which it kinda is, and R somehow feels like he needs to say more here if they’re going to be friends. R clears his throat, the sound coming out as the rasp of a dying man choking on his blood.
The zombie tries to offer Howard a smile. “Think I’ll live,” he slurs. The smile is twitchy and sagging at the corners where some of his muscles are slowly decomposing, but it’s still a smile. “You?”
Risking a guess, he’d say Howard wasn’t doing okay. R isn’t sure how to cheer him up, but he’ll try.
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He frowns and shakes his head as if waging some kind of internal battle with himself, then stares off into space a moment, lost in the morass of exhaustion that's made studying on this diner so completely impossible. He doesn't have the energy to argue to R that he should be insulted, that this entire 'kidnap you and make you play our murdergames' schtick is offensive to the very idea idea of basic human decency, so instead he just gulps down another fistful of food and swallows.
"Anyway. Sorry about that." He doesn't sound sorry he did it, just sorry that R didn't like it, but at least going through the motions of apologizing will do something to finish laying the tension to rest, he hopes. He looks up again, sees R making an expression that can only be described as horrifying, and reminds him of that scene in A Clockwork Orange with the eyes being held open only with R's mouth. He manages to smile nervously back instead of just, well, screaming.
"So what kind of things do you like to do? Besides like...I don't know, eat waiters and talk to living people. You like movies or music or anything?"
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“Music,” R repeats, his head wobbling in a nod. “Good.”
Maybe it’s better they don’t talk about Howard’s fangirl anymore since they can’t agree about her. Music seems like a safe bet. R wishes he could blab to Howard all about his collection, how the notes make your tongue feel less swollen in your mouth. Closing your eyes and drifting. Not drifting in that fog, feeling thoughts starting to form only to drip away. It’s different somehow. R sits there at the table, still for once, no swaying or leaning to the side like he needs to be propped up, his hands limp in his lap. The zombie looks thoughtful.
His head comes up. “Frank. Ssss,” R dogs on. “Sin-tra. Heard of him?”
R knows his tastes are considered old school, but Frank’s timeless. Pure cool. There has to be a reason why even a zombie can still appreciate him and, according to Julie, R has good taste. It’s not often he gets to talk music with anyone. Julie and now Howard are about the only ones, actually. The more he thinks about it, the more R likes the idea of talking hobbies. Howard has to have some, being Living. Maybe even more than one! Obviously he’s a fan of food, even if he’s kinda picking at what’s left of his pie right now.
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"Old Blue Eyes? Yeah, I know Sinatra." And he whistles a bit of 'Fly Me to the Moon', noting that his pitch is a little off from it used to be, the whistle a little keener, with his new teeth. Of all the strange changes made to his body here in the Capitol - gaining weight back, being put back together without scars or injuries after each arena - it's the teeth that feel weird to him. He had gaps before, places where his teeth had rotted out entirely, one place where he ripped one out with pliers and had the Healer fix up the socket, and now he has a model actor million-dollar grin, white and shiny and perfectly straight (currently still slightly caked in pie).
"I didn't know you had taste, Rob, but I gotta say I'm more of an Elvis fan myself." There's a way Howard's beaming now, like he's found common ground he didn't even know he was searching for. He looks thrilled by this new revelation of kinship. He even sits up straighter, somewhat unconsciously mimicking the way R's perked up.
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"Let...me sing...for...e-ver," R tries to match Howard, mouthing along with lyrics he knows by heart. "Because..."
His moan trails off into a sigh. Despite the awkwardness with that girl earlier, R suspects he's happy and he thinks Howard is too. It's not a bad day, stylists and Arenas and hunger aside. R sits there, slumped back into his chair like trying to mumble along took everything out of him. That felt good. It felt really, really good. It’s probably not what being actually alive feels like but maybe it’s close. He wants to go up to Howard, shake his hand, thank him for being kinda awesome. For a moment he could almost forget Julie, listening to that whistling. R seems to revive after a long minute as if he went into a trance, just in time to catch Howard going on about the King and being hit full-force with Howard’s grin at the same time. It’s the total opposite of a zombie’s snarl: all white teeth and healthy gums, big and wide, with a full person behind it and not a shadow.
R has no idea what that girl was talking about. Howard’s got class. He bleeds class all over the place when he lets it.
“Good Luck Charm,” R says. “Your song?”
Man, he wishes they were back at the airport now more than ever. Getting Howard past all the other zombies would be…fun, but it’d be worth it to show off his vinyl collection. R bets Howard never heard Elvis like that.
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Something about finding this music so far from home is relaxing. There's something profoundly melancholy about knowing that odds are that he and R are the only ones who recognize the tune, but in a way it's a bit exciting, like figuring out a private language you can share with someone. He likes R. R's like a secret keeper, in a way, a treasurebox into whom Howard's putting fears and sorrows and joys, a large human diorama into which Howard is arranging his interests and taking delight in the fact that they fit into scenery so well. That R absorbs, processes, responds.
"And that's kind of funny, Good Luck Charm..."
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his Tribute token, a lucky rabbit's foot he won at an arcade when he was twelve. It's really the only physical memento he has left of his life before the Games, before the FAYZ. He holds it in his hand, letting his eyes linger on it as if it's something amusing, as if it's whispering a semi-amusing joke to him.
He holds it out to R to look at. The dyed orange fur is ratty and faded, and the keychain that was once silver is now a brassy color. "I don't guess it does me much good, but..."
And he starts to whistle Good Luck Charm instead. He even taps out the rhythm on the table, the one two three four...
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R gives a pleased wheeze.
Still in that gentle glow of friendship, R twitches another smile on and leans forward as Howard fishes something out of his pocket. R’s gray eyes go to the thing in his hand, taking that few-second delay to focus and process it. Orange. Furry. Chain dangling from one end. Another moment to realize he knows what this is: a rabbit’s foot. There’s a few of these floating around his 747, when he first raided the airport stores for things to add to his collection, by now probably buried under more stuff. Another sign Howard has taste, R thinks. The zombie reaches out and paws a little at the rabbit’s foot, his blood-stained fingers brushing up against Howard’s skin and noticing that it’s warm like Julie's, vibrating with life. Pushing the charm around on Howard’s palm, R fixates on the feel of its soft down fur, running his fingers across patches where it’s rubbed down to leather. Maybe Howard likes touching things too. For all he knows, Howard needs to reassure himself things are there.
“Nice charm,” R looks up. He reluctantly pulls his hand back to himself. The phantom sensation of warmth fades.
Howard goes on with more whistling, his fingers drumming out Elvis now. It's way better than the big, in-your-face Capitol anthems. R opens his mouth to croak out the lyrics but nothing comes out, he blew it all on Fly Me to the Moon and it’s like he needs to recharge after all this talking. Instead the zombie closes his eyes and listens. Maybe he can do the uh-uh-uh parts, it’s kinda close to moaning if you think about it. In the end he decides nah, he only wants to listen.
R waits until Howard finishes before his eyes drift open.
“Per…” R sounds insistent now. “Perfect for you?”
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Okay, gonna wrap it up with my post