thecapitol | Holy, holy, holy, there is no other story

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Holy, holy, holy, there is no other story

Who| Initiate & Punchy
What| A thank you, congratulations, and some reconciliation.
Where| In D6
When| After the children's arena, backdated
WARNINGS| Language. Avoxing mention. Death mention.

Of course he had to watch the arena eventually, even if the Capitol hadn't opted for airing it over and over again as they're ever wont to do. He remembers when these used to be vaguely amusing. Now he tries to skim through them as fast as all he can, gathering what important bits of information is seeming most vital and key. Like "what new threats is the Capitol being capable of", or "who didn't come back this round and what did they get dying by", and "What happened to them I got care for after I died" all giving wonder that he ain't some kind of ghost.

But he's not. When he passes through the halls, he draws attention. He's almost jealous of the other Avoxes, before he remembers he's not one of them and he doesn't wish to be. Even if he's already gotten his hair cut down back to that shortness again, just to remind him of what's the better thing to be.

He makes his way to District 6, with the images clear in his mind; the melting away of his flesh and bone, Terezi collapsing there, still injured. And the Punch, making all the fuck about carrying her off and out of the way. Safe. He only learns the motherfucker got being a victor laterways. It's all just being righteous to be getting about this, after the seeing to of Terezi back in the Hospital center.

Question was, if he was being on the floor somewhere, or down in his hiveblock. Room. Whatever.

"PUNCH! The fuck you at, brother?"

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Initiate isn't answered by a voice so much as a setting: the throbbing of Punchy's bass emanating from his bedroom. The speakers are turned up high in Punchy's typical aural warfare with Darcy Lewis, who has long since left the premises and gone out to get a coffee.

Somehow, Punchy manages to hear Initiate through the din, and throws on an oversized jacket and sweatpants to meet his bro out in the hallway barechested.

The Arena has still done a number on him; the Stylists had his broken nose fixed but it'll take a few weeks for the swelling around his eyes to go down, for the stitches across his abdomen to fix the skin together for good. His pale skin has a luminous quality from all the Capitol bath products, but the bruising shows through it like organs in a dissected frog's belly, and the entire effect is somewhat sickly. That he's sniffling a bit from a line of coke he did earlier in the evening doesn't help.

"Fuck I always am, dawg, kicking it at my crib." He hooks his thumbs over his waistband, body slacking into a casual stance. "'Sup', homes?"

Get greeting on to him by the speakers is enough to make him laugh and grin as is. His hearing is better than human's tend to be. He should've known. He heads on down that way and his smile falters only a moment after realises the number what winning has brought on him.

It makes him question if all he ought to forget what he was going to say. There's not going to be a time whereas it's the perfect time for saying things though, particularly not things as what this is.

"FIGURED I'D OFFER AT MY CONGRATULATORIES," He says. "Up and out, crowned on victorious." He has to admit he didn't expect it, but he hardly ever expected anyone to win, and one of them had to. "BEEN A LONG TIME OWED. Get leverage due all about it I would. MAKE THEM MOTHERFUCKERS BE AT TO YOU LIKE SOME PROVIDENCE MOTHERFUCKING DIVINE, YO." Especially after what got done. The retribution would be nice.

His expression shifts, turning that bit more solemn and serious. "Also... wanted as to say thank you. WATCHED THE TAPE. Gave providence at of your own looking on a sister Pyrope, you did." Pulling her away from that unrighteous noise as where he wasn't able. It's not much, but even that little bit counts.

"Ah." There's a pause on Punchy's face so obvious that one would have to be blind to not notice it before a sort of rakish smile replaces it, made all the more rogueish by the busted nose. He lost a tooth in the Arena, too, and at his insistence his Stylists replaced it with a gold cap that catches the light and glints.

"Was there any doubt I'd be trouncing some bitches eventually? All them Arenas I thrown before was just that, throwing." He cocks his head back and preens a little; Initiate's one of the few people here taller than his, and somehow that makes Punchy want to square his shoulders, tighten his stomach, appear as if he's imposing the same stance. "Besides, that little troll shawty be too young to be sliding off before she even get to the finish line."

So was everyone in that Arena. It should have gone to a kid, not a stunted twenty year-old. It should have gone to anyone else.

"You wanna grab some grub? Maybe legit grubs for you?"

He's heard it said human teeth don't grow back as like troll's do. He supposes he should've expected something as strange as fake ones gone gilded, though how the motherfucker gets it in and staying in he hasn't got a clue, nor does he really want to have one.

He snorts as Punchy preens. Just throwing. Right. "THROWING SO HARD LOOKS AS LIKE IT CAME BACK FOR WHACKS NUMEROUS, YO," He laughs with a lift of a brow. But, motherfucker did get helping, and he still remains grateful. He can do a little dramatic ego appeasing, one hand going over his heart and the other up in the air as he says, "Ninjas be to rue what days doubt was upon them, by revelations coming true you've so proven thine self."

Punchy's stance doesn't go without notice, but he's not about to comment. Leave the brother some pride, he figures.

"FUCK YEAH BRO, BE ALL ABOUT THEM AUTHENTIBRATES."

"Yeah, dawg. Low five." He holds his hand out, knowing he can't well do a high five with someone that tall. Somehow, Punchy seems to understand every word of Initiate's speak, and out of some longseated insecurity about his own dialect he wouldn't critique it even if he couldn't.

"Shit, son, let's hit up the kitchens and I'mma show you all them tips and tricks I got when I be stealthing." That's the way Punchy tries to phrase it, as if he were just moving in intentional silence rather than brainwashed and maimed. "You want your chow covered in chocolate, peppermint, drank? They got it, you just gotta know it exists to order it."

He smacks his hand on the elevator to take them down.

He hesitates only for the briefest moment. It ain't because of not knowing what this is by his way of being alien. More that, this motherfucker being human, and his ownself being a highblood, he's got awareness that if he really tried, he could probably crush those bones. But the second passes and he manages proper a satisfying clap of it with still keeping restraint.

He follows Punchy into the elevator, ducking through the doors. All the promise of chocolate covering would be enough to keep him grinning steady. That and making note for the borrowing of such descriptionaries legit as stealthing.

But as the doors close and the thoughts close in with him. He's reminded of the realities unfolding.

"Actually, brother, one more thing I got at to mention." He looks wayside, like it'll take the weight off. "A VICTOR NOW, YOU UP AND IS. All of permanency. THINGS DONE AS TO MOTHERFUCKING LINGER." He hesitates, just a moment. "...Be careful, is all at I'm saying."

Punchy's face gets serious. He sees his reflection in the elevator light as he punches in the code the Avoxes gave him. His silent homies still have his back, still want to make something of the miserable swath of months his torture and brainwashing were. The community there is a strange one, a camaraderie Punchy shares with no one else - except, perhaps, The Initiate.

The boy, the young man, looking back at him through blurry brushed metal has blood-red eyes and bruises pooling in haunted sockets.

"When I done busted up their network last time, they pinned it on some peeps in District Three and iced the whole family." He glances up at Initiate from under his brows, rather than tilting his head up to meet his face with his own.

"I can push with being Avoxed again. They can shut me up. At least that shit's on me." He shakes his head as the elevator begins to carry them down. "But they was making a point. They was sending a message. If I toe the line they'll be bringing down the hammer on you and Dave and Gary and all the other peeps.

"It ain't about me," he concludes. "Being Victor don't change a thing."

"IT CHANGES AS IF YOU CAN MAKE COMING BACK FROM IT!" He blurts, fist hitting the wall. He regrets it immediately, hand drawing back to be held against his ownself.

"Yeah, three turned as to ash," He says. "YEAH, THEY'D BE ALL THE FUCK ABOUT TAKING OTHERS OUT AS TO PUNISH YOU. But they still punished you and you know who sees that? EVERYBODY! You think I ain't know? I KNOW, WE BOTH KNOW, THIS AIN'T GO AWAY. Not motherfucking really. BUT OTHER MOTHERFUCKERS, THEY GET AS TO BELIEVE THAT. We slip the slam up at them and they're thinking like, it's okay, it's all better now. MAYBE THEY'RE BEING RIGHT THAT FUCKIN LITTLE. You could turn around and say no at to me right now I bet. BUT EVEN STILL..."

If he took off his paint, he'd reveal darkness deep as like what Punchy wears also. Hollowed cheeks like he got a draining on him. He looks like he should be wearing more scars than what he's just go on his arms left over from his Alternian sweeps. He puts his paint on and he covers it up, out of the way at for anyone to see. Then he cuts his hair, because for every little part he tries to hide, he's too damn ill to hide it all. Punchy had at his own methods and means for hiding, dodging words as all he couldn't hide the dark of his eyes.

"...IF YOU MOTHERFUCKING LOOK AT ME LIKE TO BE OF HONESTY AND SAYING YOU DON'T CARE WHAT HAPPENS AT TO YOU..."

He wouldn't be surprised. He knows so many martyrs. Mirth, he knows all too fucking many martyrs, he's so tired of martyrs, mostly because he keeps making fucking friendly with them and then they try at to go and he never knows what all to do.

"They changed us, we died, and we came back," He says. "IT HAPPENS AGAIN AS HERE BEING PERMANENT, WE AIN'T KNOW THERE IS ANY COMING BACK. Ain't no knowing on ablings to heal. THEY DON'T EVEN MAKE A FAKE WEEP WHEN OUR LOT KICKS IT." Maybe he should just get used to it. "Shit, I don't fucking know, bro, just lie to me or something, say as you'll try making safe?"

Two years ago, Punchy wouldn't have flinched when Initiate's fist hit the wall. He wouldn't be scared in elevators, wouldn't take the stairs more often than not, wouldn't imagine every time he gets one that it's a tongueless mouth delivering him to a world of more tongueless, silent mouths along its metal gullet.

But he does. He winces when Initiate practically towers over him with the pain, the shared pain only they know, and all but bludgeons him with it. Punchy knows, he knows, he knows, and yet he's survived by assembling a ramshackle foundation of lies about how he doesn't care about himself, how he's a hero who belongs to some greater glory, how that alone could be enough to support him.

But of course it's not, and he takes a deep breath that stammers on its way out his lungs. His hands are shaking in his pockets.

"A'ight, dawg, no homo, jeez." He looks back at that reflection, the ghoul in the steel mirror as the last floor of the elevator dings away. "I'll check myself. Ain't shit I can do so I might as well check myself. Because you bitches think I'm worth something when I'm just, when I'm just..."

He wants to throw his fist at the doors, but they open and he just steps out. Out into the laundry room, the Avox quarters, where mute slaves who tended to their mutilated mouths use detergent until it gives them cancer. "What use've any of us got with this at our feet?"

Avox quarters. The dull-toothed jaw to that tongueless maw. A crushing force closing up on them and around the motherfucking throat just short of popping a nugbone up and off. He swallows and feels the ghostly ache of it.

His usual method of piercing his palms to keep his head is staved off. If he spills so much as a drop of indigo here, he'll get five motherfuckers on kneeling before him and he ain't want that even a motherfucking little, for so many reasons. So he catches them in the clothes, poking holes and pretending like they connect direct to the ones up in his thinkpan.

It feels like violation, to speak here, especially so damn loud. But still, he speaks. "YOU GOT MY FRIENDSHIP," He says. "That ain't no small thing. NOT TO ME. All these people I got here keep me at from being who I used to be. AND WORSE. Who I was going to be. EVERY BIT COUNTS, YO." His words stumble on numb legs. "You got more friends than just me, too, what you give reason for. MOTHERFUCKERS NEED AT TO FIGHT FOR SOMETHING. I mean, you make samelike of them, right? THAT'S USE."

He might offer apology to them avoxes near had he not known better what panic be imbued of getting spoken at to. His eyes dart down, not like he wants to pretend they ain't there, but because he wants to be like he ain't there himself. Just another ghost, one what ain't wishing no harm.

That, and he doesn't want to see that copy of Jane here, the lack of Cecil. He doesn't want to feel the burn over his lips where he wore stitches on his mouth in his life before.

"...And I, uh, ain't know what a homo is bro."

No care was ever given to the acoustics of the Avox quarters, because no voices ever needed to be heard and no one who mattered had ears needing protection from the scraping of metal and howling of industrial machines. The sounds still come up on Punchy sometimes when he's listening to music, and he'll pause the track for a moment, realizing that memory that slid into his head was just another beat.

Initiate's voice echos and sounds metallic and sharp in the room.

"So that's what we do, we be fighting for each other?" He wants to say that they aren't doing much fighting so much as just existing, trying to hold each other as they slip through each others' fingers. They've managed nothing, and every Arena that passes, a few fewer people come back and a few more get victimized.

"Just homies who be getting all up in the ass. It's blasphemous, but." Punchy shrugs. So's a lot of the shit he does, honestly, and God hasn't seen fit to reach down and smite him yet. Just leave him here. He's already been in Hell for two years now, and more than once the idea of just ceasing to fear God entirely has snuck up into his brain.

Like Initiate, he moves like a ghost through here. He knows them all by name, having looked at every file after he was released from servitude, but he knows none of them will want to hear it. Being singled out at all is usually pretext for violence.

He grabs a case of bugs from the top shelf of the kitchen. "You like vinegar, dawg?"

He shrugs. "FOR OURSELVES. For each other. FOR MAKING MOTHERFUCKIN HOPEFUL UP ON IT." Because at least then if they died, it was all being in trying, right? Messiahs would forgive him that.

This place wasn't hell. He'd certainly not use the word, not knowing proper what the concept of hell up and was. But the whole of all Capitol's horrors, even this, was sad failed imitator to that of Alternia. He'd seen worse.

No, the problem wasn't being the world. This world, just as his own, was survivable. The problem was doing so and keeping hold on the heart, not crushing it in one's own motherfucking digits.

That's what mattered in the end wasn't it? Not surviving, but making it through with heart intact. Two ways to win, two ways what to motherfucking lose up in. You keep your heart, you keep your people. You lose it, you keep your life. The rules, Alternia to here, hadn't changed.

"Describe at to me." He pauses. "NOT WHATEVER IT IS YOU'S MEANING WITH THE HUMAN ASS BLASPHEMIES," He elaborates with a confused frown. "The vinegar. WHAT'S THAT BEING LIKE?" Perhaps he's had it at some point while here without realising. Not to mention, there was always a wonder on whether he didn't know something for it being alien, or if it was just because he lived that much a damned recluse.

"Try it, dawg." He grabs a handful of dried crickets from a tupperware and passes them to the Initiate. Even with a normal speaking voice, it all seems too loud for this place that Punchy is now realizing is a church, a great cathedral of survival. People assume the Avoxes are broken, that their spirits are so ravaged that they're automatons.

And yet there are tiny bits of humanity still wedged inside their brainwashed souls, like leftover food tucked into the crevices of someone's teeth. Avoxes have their preferred beds of the rollout cots. They tend to their own. And when, like he and Initiate, they recover, they remember it.

They're capable of recovery at all.

"We's also got live ones and bacon-flavored mofos. Oh, and cheddar." He takes a seat on one of the counters and stares at this workroom that he used to shuffle around, awaiting orders, in a uniform that gave him an allergic reaction of red hives along his upper arms and chest. He moves his tongue in his mouth.

And silently, to himself, he vows that either he'll destroy this place, this holy order of silence and pain, if it's the last thing he does.

He takes that tupperware and is quick to pop some in his maw. He savors taste and texture more all than he had before-- which said something when he spent sweeps doing that alright, hunting for his ownself and claiming his cull. He says, "It's sour. SALTY? You humans put this up on your fish." He recognizes it now. And thus the mystery of the fish is solved.

"GETTING ONE AT OF 'EM ALL," He decides, and he's reaching for the himself now that he knows where they are. He's got thought up in pan not to take any what there ain't more of. If shit wasn't proper stocked, would be more likely as the Avox would be to pay than no motherfucker else.

He's coming back with an arm full of crickets when he catches sight of Punchy's face. A pensive look what all gets its distance on in seeking things what ain't yet here. And aren't going to be for a long while yet.

But he matches it, solemn. A trick Avoxes learn. The mute among mutes get eye for it, reading what's not said plain, based on mutual understanding. He catches Punchy's gaze, holds it, and nods. It's a little more than what the true mutes would dare pass in message, but if they were that little bit of free, they needed that little bit of fight.

At the very least, he could show that he gets it.

"Nah man, we put tartar up in our fish." Punchy has never cooked a meal in his life. He thinks hot pockets and Eggos are the height of the culinary arts. If there's an ingredient in fish besides 'whatever makes them fishsticks', he doesn't know what it is.

He meets Initiate's eyes, and almost lowers his head out of respect for this place, out of this habit that was forced into him like grout into a crack when he was an Avox. Direct eye contact is too authoritative. It isn't to be maintained with your betters. With your masters.

But he holds Initiate's gaze and nods back, swallowing nothing for the moment.

They'll be back here someday again.

He isn't punchy's better-than, his master, no more than Punchy is to him. He's sure Punchy would feel the same as he does in regards to all the other Avoxes. They would be back here one day. They could see that this place would cease to exist entirely. They could make it so it never came to be ever the fuck again.

That's one thing what made this better than Alternia. There was more than false hope.

His arms are too full to give Punchy no sort of shoulder pat, but he can force on a grin and nod away.

"Come on, brother. PROMISED GRUB, SO LET'S BE AT GET WHAT'S FOR YOUR ASS. Still gotta get our motherfucking celebrational up and on, yo. DON'T BE HOLDING OUT."

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Holy, holy, holy, there is no other story

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lost the notif thought i had punchvana nooooooo

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/start wrapping?

Rad~ thank ye! c: