thecapitol | We Get Older [Closed]

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We Get Older [Closed]

WHO| Punchy and Carlos, Punchy and Dave, Punchy and Gary
WHAT| Post-Arena condolences.
WHERE| Lobby of the Tribute Center.
WHEN| After the children's Arena.
WARNINGS| None yet aside from your typical juvenile murder games fare.

Tonight, it occurs to him that he's actually going to age. Physically, not just carrying extra years in his soul like an invisible tick, bloating itself on his years in Panem. His body's going to be allowed to slouch and swagger into its twenties, rather than stuck permanently at eighteen.

The freedom from the Arena, and the cage of life as a Victor, hasn't hit him like a sack of bricks. It's just revealed itself in details that blindside him as each day goes by.

He keeps coming home half an hour before curfew, irate that he isn't able to drown out his woes in public revelry. He wants to go to bars and gets wasted and feel up the cute girls who throw themselves at the new Victor. He wants to paste over the feeling of a chasm yawning beneath him with confetti and alcohol and g-strings. Sometimes he gets a little bit into it before the alarm comes, and he stumbles back to the Suite intoxicated, but usually he feels as if grieving for the person he's supposed to be has been painfully truncated every night.

He's going to age. He's going to get old here in the Capitol while everyone he cares about dies in the Arena or rots in the ground. He's so excited he could cry.

Tonight he's sober when he gets back to the Tribute Center, carrying a box of trinkets under his puffy jacket. The soon-winter air outside has flushed his cheeks and the tip of his nose rosy. He glances at the still-erected statue of the naked Enjolras and frowns at it, unsure if it's out of relief that he didn't suffer the same fate or out of envy that he didn't get a nude statue.

It's totally envy.

He flops down on a couch and rubs his hands together, reminding himself to buy mittens tomorrow. He won't use the Avoxes to run that errand. This one's on him.

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Punchy looks sheepish, then outright ashamed, staring at his shoes for a moment after Dave puts his finger on one of the elephants in the room. It's not that Punchy isn't aware of the damage he's doing to his body, his mind - his relationships, even. It's not like he can't call it like it is, an unhealthy coping mechanism.

"I been playing at a hero long enough. Maybe a wizard's on the up." He doesn't sound convinced, and it's far from a promise to look into that or anything else for Dave. He doesn't know how Dave hasn't crumpled under the Arenas, but then again, Punchy's been here two years, including three months Avoxed. Maybe anyone would start to fray after that long.

"I just need ways to not think for a few. Because when I do..." He makes a gesture like his head's exploding. "You know."

For a moment, Dave feels like he might regret bringing it up. He still feels like his relationship with Punchy is fragile, like he might squeeze too hard and shatter it. He so desperately wants to feel the camaraderie and the inclusion of someone he respects that he's worried he might ruin it by proving himself to be a lot less fun and exciting than he tries to amp himself up to be.

Yet, there's something about getting it out that feels better. Like he's marked his awareness and he's begun his own steps toward being a real friend and not someone just around for small talk and video games. It feels like a moment for physical affection, but Dave has never been one for that. When Punchy talks, his brain says hug him, do him a solid. Punchy seems affectionate, Punchy would appreciate the gesture and it's not like he knows what to say.

He hesitates for a long moment before he lets himself slide to the side, his skinny frame colliding with Punchy's shoulder and arm as he leans his weight against him and stares ahead. "I know." His voice is a little softer, but no less certain. "I'll be there when you do. Or when you don't. If it helps." He doesn't think it does. "That's what bros are for." He feels a little saccharine for it, but sometimes life calls for sincere moments that seem constructed from cliches.

Dave chose right. Punchy not only accepts the hug, but he returns it, turns it into a full embrace as if he's an amoeba seeking to absorb Dave, and in doing so, to take for himself some of the self-awareness and determination and goodness that feels so tarnished in himself; as if the best parts of Punchy are not things he came by honestly or that were welded into his genetics since birth but the elements he's taken from other people, either devoured or mimicked; as if it's just occurred to him right now, that which some people seem to intuit from birth and others never come to, that the essence of humanity isn't something that can be contained in the a sole form as if it were a vessel but exists in between them like effluvium, in auras that combine and swap materials like smoke.

"I ain't gonna throw off your sleep schedule with my bullshit, dawg." He waves a hand as he lets Dave go, but in more words he manages to express the same gratitude as a simple 'thanks' would have managed. His appreciation is all over his face, his eyes that already look watery because his healing injuries and habitual toking have given the whites a sickly pinkish tone.

"I'll be breezy. Just got to get my head on straight. That's all." He's telling himself more than Dave, honestly. "Helps having homies."

There's a strong sense of relief that practically fills Dave's veins the moment Punchy returns the hug. No fronting, no no-homos, it's about time Dave did something real. It's something immeasurably valuable for him to give to someone, like he's tearing off a piece of himself and putting it in Punchy's front pocket. The fact that it's reciprocated makes him feel safe in spite of everything, and it feels selfish when it's Punchy who needs protecting. He learned long ago that even his most idyllic heroes like his brother fall fast and hard when faced with storms they can't weather, he's just in the process of learning that it isn't his fault when it happens. He's learning how to be there for people when they need him and not shutting off because he's scared of fucking up. His head buries a little closer, just for a moment, just so he can shut off and reboot and snap back when Punchy moves to end the connection.

"What sleep schedule?" He shoots back, his tone thinly forced in an attempt to play all of that casual. Bros are always cuddling on couches when they sense a disturbance in the force, that's life. "I spent three years on a perpetually dimly lit asteroid and dude. I'm sixteen, I still think staying up until dawn is rad." And it has nothing to do with the fact that he's been having night terrors long before he even arrived here. "If you wanna show up at four and play uno, we can play uno. Or. Something less chronically lame, the world is our fucking oyster." He adds, rubbing the back of his neck when he does. "I don't mind having people around when they don't cramp my style."

Which is to say that he has nights where he feels desperately lonely and isolated and afraid of losing every connection he made here to the point where he'll sleep on Elsa's floor to feel like he isn't about to get spirited away to space again. If Punchy shows up in his room whenever, it's all the better. It means he can watch over him without suffocating him, it means he has a friend who trusts him so much he'd show up whenever. That shit is invaluable.

Edited 2015-02-25 10:09 (UTC)

Punchy, once Dave's broken the hug (Punchy wouldn't have done it himself), gestures with one finger at the ceiling, as if he sky were the source of all the authoritarian power bearing down on them. "Curfew, dawg. I don't want you getting your ass grassed by the po-po."

And, he realizes, that's the only excuse. He would want Dave at his side for the tides that rock his little boat. For when Dave, himself, is rocked; maybe being able to provide an anchor would be something to give Punchy a little bit of that meaning back, if he could help someone in a way that isn't ushering them into a clean death.

"But curfew's up at what, five in the mo'? You wake up then and you can find me. I ain't much for sleep." He brushes his bangs, which are finally starting to wilt out of his hair gel, to the side. "Even back at the block, I be chunking it at four a night and doing fine. It's in my chemistry."

In a display of how willing Dave is to follow Punchy's lead, he glances up toward the ceiling as well with brief confusion before his shoulders sag in defeat. "Aw. I thought they'd get bored of it by now." You know, despite all signs pointing to the contrary.

"Got it. Open invite." Dave follows his words with a short nod, because it begs a moment of consideration. When did he get this tight with Punchy? They've always been buddies, but it feels like this friendship just intensified over the course of a conversation. Maybe that's the sorry thing about being here, everything sucks but forming friendships is like shooting fish in a barrel. For a kid who had no more than three friends for the longest time, it feels profoundly strange and yet, absolutely natural.

"Speaking of government enforced bedtime, we're probably veering into naughty territory right about now." He holds his skinny, freckled wrist out in front of him so he can check the watch he isn't wearing. His powers have been stripped off him, but he still keeps impeccable time when he isn't too distracted. "You coming up?" He angles a shoulder vaguely toward the elevator, reluctant to walk off and leave Punchy alone.

"Church." He pats that sagging shoulder like he's trying to convince himself that it wasn't disappointment but just a reaction to a motion that came a gesture too late to cause it. He glances down to, what else, a gold clock on a chain around his neck. "Yeah, we cutting it bloody with this. Let's bounce."

Punchy gets up like a wounded veteran, pained but not relinquishing any of his body language to it. The injuries from the Arena will leave him eventually, and because they're temporary he doesn't see the need to bow to them at all. He'll walk without a limp if it kills him. He hits the elevator buttons for both him and Dave's floors.

"See you tomorrow, homes."

It's definitely just Dave going through the motions of a conversation, perhaps while also discreetly trying to take care of Punchy in a manner that he hopes he isn't picking up on. He knows the other boy isn't dumb enough to go around skipping curfew, but Dave is careful anyway.

He doesn't help Punchy up or offer him an arm, because he knows he wouldn't appreciate it. He does, however, keep relatively close to the other boy in the most casual manner he can muster. He slinks into the elevator after him, hands sunk into his pockets as he slouches.

"5am, right?" He says it like it's a joke, but the invitation is open. He lets that hang in the air for a moment before he pipes up again. "Thanks for the present, beeteedubs. My swag is gonna be off the charts." He smiles upward at Punchy with a level of sincerity he seems almost unaware of. The elevator dings a little too early for his liking and they're on the sixth floor before he knows it.

"Stay frosty, dog." He lifts a fist up for one final bump before he lets Punchy leave for the night.

"On the dot." Even as they don't touch, he can feel Dave next to him, like a space heater that's acknowledged through emotion rather than temperature. It calms him a little, makes him serene and sad. He imagines that his stress is a texture of spiked fabric, and that Dave is like oil being poured over it, soothing but wet.

He bumps Dave's fist, a slight but genuine smile etched into his pale features. It's still there when the elevator door closes.

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