something that can wash all the pain | OTA

[reassures]

Who| Nill and YOU
What| Drinking and possibly crying
Where| Tribute center lounge/bar
When| Way backdated to just after Week 2
Warnings/Notes| Typical post arena warnings + alcohol warning. References to hard drugs and suicide in Linden's thread.

Nill opens her eyes, and the first thought that goes through her mind is that she wants to cry. She can't tell if it's because she's relieved or bitterly angry, but it sits like lead in the pit of her stomach, like fire, and she pulls her knees up to her chest to drown the heat of it, or else she knows it will burn through to her bones.

It may be a good thing that the Tributes don't seem to wake up in their own beds, because if they did she's not sure when she would actually find it in her to get up again. Even with where she is it's a long time before Nill can muster the energy to actually sit up again, let alone to pull the blanket from the cot around her shoulders and stand. When they let her she stumbles her way out of the room, wings folded down and blanket still held tightly around herself as she slowly makes her way up through the tower.

There's no physical pain, and that's probably the most jarring part. There are phantom aches in her skin and joints, the unmarked patch of skin where a xenomorph had stabbed a hole into her side burns, and the long stretch of her forehead that was still horribly bruised for most of the Arena throbbed, though it was completely and utterly okay now. There's not a mark on her but everything hurts, and the ache in her chest is by far the worst of it. She feels sick, and Nill wants nothing more than to sink down and not move again. She does a good job of avoiding this base instinct until she gets to the lobby, and on one of the screens there's a flash of small troll with nubby horns, thoroughly miserable and beat up but alive, and Nill freezes before she can take more than a few steps.

She gives in to the instinct, though not where she stands. Nill makes her way to the bar, gestures to borrow a pen from the bartender, and writes out an order on a napkin. He seems to tel her that she can hold on to it, and once Nill has a hot coffee that smells very much of whiskey she sits in a seat far off to the side, where she can watch the monitors.

To say she looks miserable would be putting it lightly.

Comments

[dead_black_eyes]

He gives her a broken smile, shaking his head permissively.

"That is hardly the worse invasion of privacy a Victor can experience. Everyone in Panem has seen my Games. It's... everything here, in so many ways. Entertainment, politics, career... watching is better than not watching. It's better than not knowing who's alive and who's dead. So we all watch, every year, and have since long before I was born. It might not be OK, to you, but... it's normal, Nill."

He takes a last sip of water before reaching for the bottle again.

"It's human. I think it's the only chance the people in the Capitol really get, to see it so raw and real."

[reassures]

There are a hundred things she could say, and she wants to say all of them. The urge is almost tripled when he smiles at her the way he does; it cuts into her chest like a physical wound, worse than the xenomorph tail that ultimately killed her.

There are so many things she could say about this place, all of them awful, and how they're so many times more awful for what they've done to Linden over the years. But almost all of them would have Peacekeepers on her in a moment, and it's a good thing that the mute can't just blurt out the things they want to say, because if Nill could they would probably already have her in handcuffs.

She's not sure when she crushed the napkin that was in her hands-- only that, when she goes to set it down and write on it, it's already a crumpled mess. She sets it aside and looks at it for a few long seconds before reaching for another.

normal doesn't make it ok.

Nothing about this place makes it okay.

[dead_black_eyes]

People like to say that Linden is weak, a slave to his vices, and utterly pitiful. Sometimes, they couldn't be more right, but the truth is that it takes a lot of strength to smile, even that way, and to breathe, and to continue. Linden only survived his arena because he was able to adapt, and even if it hurts and has left a lot of scars, he can still smile, breathe, and continue on command.

He meets her eyes, catches a glimpse of some of those things she wants to say but would be very foolish to. He notes the motion of her hand crushing the napkin, and then, after a considering pause, moves his own hand forward across the table to brush it with his fingertips.

"Sometimes, even if the pieces will never be whole again... there's something to be said for keeping them all together in the same place, or at least as many as possible. I find it helps to look at the pieces... for example, I'm sitting here, enjoying a drink with my friend, and learning new things about her, so... normal, and OK, even if..." he trails off, taking his turn to recognize what he can't say.

"I'm grateful for the chances I have."

[reassures]

Nill can't help but wonder if these are the first things she's really told him about herself. Not that her time in the Arena didn't demonstrate a fair amount, from self-hatred to a complete lack of ability to look after herself closer to the end, before Karkat, before she died. She's spent more of her time hoping he wouldn't notice things about her than hoping he would notice anything about her.

It feels like a long time since she told anyone much about herself at all, and certainly not without the safety of a means of communication that was largely undetectable.

She stares at his hand for a long moment, and then writes hastily on another napkin, sliding it over a little sooner than she might normally. The reason becomes obvious soon enough; while his hand is still closer to her, note written, she reaches to gently clasp his hand in both of hers, looking a little more at his fingers than his face.

I'm grateful too.
I'm really glad you're still here.

She thought he might not be when she was in the Arena. Not that he would know that. It wasn't a concern she could speak out loud, and the only person she expressed it to never said much about it out loud either. But she'd been genuinely worried he might not be here anymore if she made it back.

[dead_black_eyes]

Over the years Linden has watched a lot of individuals compete in the Arena. He grew up in Panem, after all, and the Games are such an integral part of life here that every child and all but the very oldest of adults alive today have no recollection whatsoever of what things were like before the Uprising. By this point in his late twenties, Linden has seen hundreds of people meet their ends as sacrifices to some kind of greater good, but watching Nill struggle to keep Karkat safe and then succumb so helplessly herself is probably the hardest it's hit him since his own Games. His smile is slightly forced, but it's still brave, and he keeps it firmly in place, because her hopes are largely in vain; if she wishes for him not to notice things, it's wishing for him to go against his naure and what made him able to survive a little over a decade ago, and every day since. Linden notices much more than most people give him credit for, and though Nill hasn't spoken to him in too much detail about her past and the things that have built and broken her, this is acutely true for her, as well.

His hand clasps hers in return, squeezing, not hard enough to hurt but enough to communicate that it's a lifeline.

"Don't talk like that. Where on Earth would I go?"

The smile is harder than ever to keep in place, because they both know, and both have to police themselves on how candidly they can speak of such things in public.

"I'm sorry, Nill," he adds softly, almost as an afterthought, in a much lower voice.

[reassures]

The sad thing is that Nill didn't even mean leaving to go to District 13, although she's aware of that thanks to the Initiate. If Nill were to return from an Arena one day only to find that Linden had, somehow, left and gotten to District 13... She would be devastated, but it would be good for him to get away from this hellhole, so she'd learn to not mind it as much. She'd figure out how to smoke on the roof alone again, how to spend her own sleepless nights without company. She did it for years. She could do it again.

But that's not the case in this. Before Nill was ushered out of her room by the peacekeepers it was obvious that Linden didn't know where he was, or who he was with. She's fairly certain that he didn't know it was her at all after they got to her room, even if he mentioned her plants. She left thinking he might not wake up again, and knowing full well that if he didn't the Capitol wouldn't care enough to bother bringing him back to life.

The apology, however, she doesn't understand, and it shows in her expression when she finally lifts her gaze again to look at him. Instead of letting go of his hand, which would probably be the easiest course of action, Nill leans forward a little and tilts her head slightly, trying to catch his eyes.

Why are you apologizing?

[dead_black_eyes]

District 13 is a far-off product of whispers; Linden knows little more than most Capitol citizens about it, Even if he knew more, it's doubtful whether he'd accept that it's a place where he can't drink or abuse Morphling. It's doubtful he'd accept it as a place he could be happy, and it's doubtful he could accept it as a place without Nill.

He's survived up to this point. Not always triumphed, or come out whole, but he's managed to live through his arena and every painful or embarrassing mishap since. But there have been so many of them, a long string of scarcely-remembered regrets that make up for what they lack in detail with feelings of sliminess and shame fairly filling Linden's insubstantial core.

He meets her eyes reluctantly. "I don't know how much sense I'm making but... I hate that I'm not the kind of person you can rely on. I like people like that... my escort Stephen is one of them. I'm jealous."

[reassures]

Unfortunately there's really no way that Nill can nonverbally respond to that without needing to write. Though she keeps holding onto his hand with one of her own she reaches for a new napkin with the other.

what makes you think you're not?

Karkat, Linden, and the Initiate are the people Nill trusts the most here. That might not mean much, but it's unlikely Nill would trust someone she couldn't rely on from the start.

[dead_black_eyes]

Trusting someone and relying on them are related, but not identical. Linden's had a lot of time to think about it. He will never consciously betray Nill's trust, but in moments where he needs to come through for her, he's well aware of the fact that he may simply not be strong enough, in body or will, and that is what he hates.

"I live my life as a slave," he says, speaking softly, scarcely moving his lips to better get away with it. "And not just to the Capitol. I wake up every morning wanting it to be different, and sometimes I genuinely mean that. I did this morning."

And he almost got kicked out of the lounge's bar, despite that determination; he thinks that the context of his statement is plenty to make his point.

[reassures]

The kind of slavery that Linden has been subjected to is one of the more difficult kinds to live with, let alone to ever break free from. As much as Nill wishes he would, wishes he could, she never expects it - she can only find herself slightly overjoyed when he does small things that speak of any kind of survival instinct and that in itself should say a lot, about both him and her.

Nill leans a little further over the table, hoping for the appearance of trying to be close, though it's mostly in part so that she can hear him better without others thinking much of it.

you do enough for me.

It's an easy enough statement that it should suggest much on what he says, and she doesn't try to hide it. It's probably easier that way, especially when what he's saying is liable to make some people very unhappy. Places like this don't enjoy when their slaves complain to others about the lives they've been forced into.

being alive is harder than it should be.
it's harder after a long time.

It doesn't excuse his lack of self-control, but she understands well enough. Sometimes when youtwake up in the morning it's easier to be strong, to have convictions like that. She can certainly see why it might not last through a day in a world like this.

And frankly, with just how long Linden's destruction has been going on, it's probably a little admirable that he entertains the idea of changing it at all.

[dead_black_eyes]

It says a lot; it says too much, because it's so little, an unsustainable scrap that couldn't buoy most relationships. Such meager expectations and pitiful offerings are not good enough to get by, but Nill accepts them and treats them like they matter in spite of this. Linden closes his eyes, the words stinging not because they're unkind, but because he knows that enough for Nill wouldn't be enough for anyone else, and that she very simply deserves more. She's too good not to.

"Well... people don't just die in the arena. The longer you live the higher your chances are of just... not, anymore."

I'm not going to be old.

"Thanks for understanding. I know you're not just trying."

You probably won't be, either..

[reassures]

His assumption is correct. Each day that goes by Nill is creeping closer and closer to the age of the man that gave her her freedom; though she never knew his precise age it's doubtful that Heine was over twenty-five, and Nill was... what? Twenty? Older? She at least knows she got bumped down a year or so physically thanks to world-hopping bullshit, and that doesn't help her to figure it out.

As it is Nill never thought she would actually live as long as she has. By now she's already been around longer than a lot of her friends. They didn't get to grow old, and no doubt never expected it. She didn't expect to either. Any talk of things after was more for the purpose of offering reassurance, and it only did so much when no one believed it.

She did when all of this started. Since then it's been too many years, and too many people gone.

The smile she offers is a little lopsided, but nonetheless gentle.

thank you too.
your friendship has meant a lot to me.

Linden is a smart man, even when inebriated, which is often. But regardless of what state he's in he never asks her anything that she might not be willing to answer, or that she wouldn't want the people listening in to know about. He's been able to tell that she has been through enough hell to wreck several buses, and he never does anything to expose that either. Even though what they're discussing isn't the happiest of topics, Nill is so very grateful that she met him.

[dead_black_eyes]

Gentleness is something he actually does feel like he has a right to ask for, even expect. As a Victor, everyone knows he's been through hell, and the least they can do is be a little gentle. He doesn't feel even a little bit like he isn't due his bits of gentleness, but it's only from Nill that it feels like true kindness.

"I don't have a lot of friends. Before I met you I don't think I really knew what it meant. There's Stephen, the Escort in my District, but... part of his job is to be my friend, so it's not quite the same thing."

He feels a twinge of guilt as he says it; he knows damn well that Stephen has stuck his neck out for him unnecessarily, helped him out of tight places with bidders, and given him untold amounts of time and effort to prevent him from meeting an early end.

[reassures]

if he didn't think of you as a friend he could pay attention to the tributes.

It wouldn't exactly be strange if he prioritized tributes. With the new games going it seems like a lot of the staff have favorites, and it wouldn't be questionable if Stephen were to ignore Linden entirely. Instead it seems like he continues the help despite Linden not often being in the best of states.

[dead_black_eyes]

He casts his eyes downward. "Well, that's... true to an extent. The thing about being staff is that we don't get much of a chance to get to know the Tributes we work with, so ultimately we aren't in the habit of developing relationships outside of other staff and other Victors. They're... pretty much the only ones that stay, so. They're the ones we invest our time and emotions in."

He sounds regretful; Mentors get to see it from both sides, after all, and they never forget the way their District's staff kind of looked through them before they won their crown.

"We're friends because we're a little more permanent in each other's lives than everyone else, but... it is nice to think that in some way he does genuinely enjoy being around me. I know I like him."