Jason Compson IV (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
whatisay) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thecapitol2015-02-12 03:41 am
whatisay) wrote in thecapitol2015-02-12 03:41 am
Entry tags:
Came Upon Me Like a Hypnic Jerk When I Was Just About Settled [Closed]
WHO| Jason Compson and Swann Honeymead
WHAT| Jason sort-of apologizes for implying Swann's a whore.
WHERE| Tribute Center, Escort's parking spaces
WHEN| After their IC inbox fight.
WARNINGS| Just JC4 being JC4.
He gets the sugar cookies that are baked into circles and stars, not hearts. It's not that he doesn't think Swann would appreciate hearts - in fact, he thinks they'll fold themselves into her chosen fashion quite nicely - but he doesn't want to give the wrong impression. This whole damn situation seems to be a parade of wrong impressions and he needn't add to them.
The selection of cookies that aren't shaped like hearts are, given the time of year, limited, but they still have sprinkles and pink icing and he figures that's good enough. He gets them wrapped in pink-tinted plastic with a bow on top, not because he orders them that way but because that's how this shop likes to dispense them.
The bakery isn't far from the Tribute Center, but the walk back still feel as if it takes too long, because time to himself is limited these last few weeks. With one more Tribute down and a fresh one put straight into the Arena, Jason's overtime has scarcely let up. The dark circles under his eyes haven't disappeared in days and the product in his hair is at least as old as yesterday morning. Until he can get a full night's sleep he's trying to avoid any in-person interaction with Sponsors so they don't see that he looks harried, but he still has to be around to babysit his Tributes, and so he's slept on the couch in the District Seven Suite nearly as many nights as he's gone home. The migraine hasn't come yet, but he can feel it brewing like a storm, ready to unleash its torrential paroxysms any day now.
He's still angry, naturally, but that's the thing with women, you can't win a cold feud with them. Every time his phone rings - and it's often, given the nature of his job - he feels a fresh surge of impotent anger, wondering again what part of Swann Honeymead's business it is how he and his mother conduct their affairs. Wondering, again, why it is that Swann expects an apology when he's done nothing but explain how it is in the Compson household, only to have her accuse him of immaturity and other things that, accurate or not, are not her place to be treading.
But the truth is his allies in the Tribute Center, and in the world in general, are scarce on the ground, and what's worse, those stupid text messages have probably been his favorite part of the last few weeks. He misses his companion, flickering about the edges of his day like a candle or a bauble catching the light. It's almost mercenary to want to repair things between them just to have back the good. He's stubborn, but he also has a mind for business.
He parked next to her this morning, although he can't remember if it was out of serendipity or intentionally, since that was hours ago and exhaustion has made the days bleed together. He knows she'll be leaving soon enough this evening, and so he sets the stack of cookies on the front of her car and leans against his own, smoking his vaporizer.
WHAT| Jason sort-of apologizes for implying Swann's a whore.
WHERE| Tribute Center, Escort's parking spaces
WHEN| After their IC inbox fight.
WARNINGS| Just JC4 being JC4.
He gets the sugar cookies that are baked into circles and stars, not hearts. It's not that he doesn't think Swann would appreciate hearts - in fact, he thinks they'll fold themselves into her chosen fashion quite nicely - but he doesn't want to give the wrong impression. This whole damn situation seems to be a parade of wrong impressions and he needn't add to them.
The selection of cookies that aren't shaped like hearts are, given the time of year, limited, but they still have sprinkles and pink icing and he figures that's good enough. He gets them wrapped in pink-tinted plastic with a bow on top, not because he orders them that way but because that's how this shop likes to dispense them.
The bakery isn't far from the Tribute Center, but the walk back still feel as if it takes too long, because time to himself is limited these last few weeks. With one more Tribute down and a fresh one put straight into the Arena, Jason's overtime has scarcely let up. The dark circles under his eyes haven't disappeared in days and the product in his hair is at least as old as yesterday morning. Until he can get a full night's sleep he's trying to avoid any in-person interaction with Sponsors so they don't see that he looks harried, but he still has to be around to babysit his Tributes, and so he's slept on the couch in the District Seven Suite nearly as many nights as he's gone home. The migraine hasn't come yet, but he can feel it brewing like a storm, ready to unleash its torrential paroxysms any day now.
He's still angry, naturally, but that's the thing with women, you can't win a cold feud with them. Every time his phone rings - and it's often, given the nature of his job - he feels a fresh surge of impotent anger, wondering again what part of Swann Honeymead's business it is how he and his mother conduct their affairs. Wondering, again, why it is that Swann expects an apology when he's done nothing but explain how it is in the Compson household, only to have her accuse him of immaturity and other things that, accurate or not, are not her place to be treading.
But the truth is his allies in the Tribute Center, and in the world in general, are scarce on the ground, and what's worse, those stupid text messages have probably been his favorite part of the last few weeks. He misses his companion, flickering about the edges of his day like a candle or a bauble catching the light. It's almost mercenary to want to repair things between them just to have back the good. He's stubborn, but he also has a mind for business.
He parked next to her this morning, although he can't remember if it was out of serendipity or intentionally, since that was hours ago and exhaustion has made the days bleed together. He knows she'll be leaving soon enough this evening, and so he sets the stack of cookies on the front of her car and leans against his own, smoking his vaporizer.
no subject
They almost mirror each other with their ingrained manners, except Swann sits up completely straight -- if she slouches, she's likely to wind up halfway under the table anyway.
"Oh, but I think that's sort of nice, family dinners. We did it at holidays, and sometimes when his work wasn't too busy, my father would get home in time to eat with me. We go out more, for lunch and stuff, now that he's slowed down some at the office."
She shrugs as she spears salad on her fork. "I guess I never really went out looking for any, after the last one. For a while, I wasn't really in the right place for it anyway, and then it just... didn't seem so important, to find a man. I figure they're always out there if I want one."
no subject
As long as it isn't bellowing or crying, it's somewhat tolerable. He finishes off the soup and goes to the potatoes and chicken, not outright complimenting them but clearly enjoying what he's eating.
"Can't say there are many options out there. People in the Capitol are disappointing, I find. I guess I always thought growing up that someday I'd be impressed by people, and I was just waiting to find out how, and then it never seemed to happen."
He shakes his head. He almost says she's the only person in the Capitol besides his mother to text him about something other than business. He figures she can guess that he doesn't have friends and never seems to crave them.
no subject
She can only be optimistic. She knows that Jason can't seem to see it that way, but Ben (didn't they used to call him something else? A nickname, maybe Benny) was innocent of any real wrong-doing, wasn't he? Swann remembered him always being that way, remembered when Jason when young and pug-nosed and mean, and would tell her to go away and play with Ben who was always howling.
"I think people here can be very... image-focused," she says delicately, pausing to chew her salad and take a drink of water. "Like all that matters is who's the prettiest or most popular right now, and they're quick to drop each other. They forget you here, look right through you as if you've never met."
Swann's been through years of it. The last time she saw an ex, it was like she'd ceased to exist. Where there used to be posters and billboards of her face plastered across the city, they easily came down the moment she wasn't the girl to watch.
"It's hard, to keep people's interest."
no subject
In a way, it's a bond between them that the other Escorts can't understand. They've both seen how quickly the current will turn against them, how eager the people here are to eat their own. They've both been victims of the mistakes of others.
"I would that I couldn't." It's the opposite, for him. Even years out of the game, living quietly on the family land, he couldn't go into town without hearing the whispers without that societal judgment hovering above him like a vulture. And now there's too much interest in him - not in what he says, but in the raggediness of his suits, in the fact that he doesn't drink, in anything people can latch onto to gossip and have a scapegoat family to mock. The Compsons, there to make everyone else look better by comparison.
"Maybe they only look at you when they want to see something that makes them feel superior. They don't look at you anymore because you're harder for them to place under their feet."
no subject
"Then why do we stay?" There's something vaguely rhetorical to her tone, like she knows that there wouldn't ever be a really satisfactory answer anyway. "There's no real reason either of us couldn't just leave the Capitol. My mother's always going on about the resorts in Four, I could go live on the beach. You could go and stay with your... your friend. It would probably be better than the way they look at us, right?"
Shaking her head, she stands and goes to get the cake.
"At least it's something to get through the hard times on."
no subject
His voice sounds flat and lifeless, but something about him - not about his face, but maybe in his eyes or the lean of his body - is radiating that yearning to believe her. That maybe there's an escape, that he could stop believing the lie his mother shoved down his throat since childhood, that he eagerly swallowed because it let him feel important.
"Besides, the Districts wreak havoc on my allergies," he says, trying to laugh at himself.
He finishes up his plate, having eaten more so much more than Swann did in as much time and yet having hardly dented the lavish display Eta had put out.
"Would you like me to serve you a piece? Promise I won't make it too big."
no subject
"Eta's cake is the best you'll ever eat. Promise."
no subject
It's not like when he smiles at parties, trying to butter up Sponsors or network with his coworkers. It's not cruel and knifelike, or conscious, like he's remembering how to do it by reciting the right muscles to use in his head. It's almost as if it's against his better judgment.
He passes her a plate with a medium-sized slice on it, larger than she would have served herself.
no subject
"And what do you mean by that?" she jokes back, taking her plate and setting it on the table, savoring that first forkful that she knows is coming, all sweet potato spice cake and candied pecans and marshmallow frosting. "Are you going to hunt me down if you ever taste a better cake?"
no subject
"I won't have to," he says, taking a seat again. "I'll just tell you I've tasted a better cake, but I'll never share the recipe. You'll spend the rest of your life not knowing and it'll drive you crazy."
He pauses dramatically and takes a bite of the cake, closing his eyes to savor it. He doesn't want to out and praise it, because that almost feels like losing some sort of wager, so he just hedges with "but it might take me a long time to find one."
no subject
She watches him take that first bite, knows exactly how good it is, then chews her own forkful with a milder expression of the bliss it always brings, the crunch of the pecans and the perfect sweetness of the brown sugar in the outer frosting.
"You can't have this recipe," she taunts, waving her fork at him. "You want more cake, you'll just have to come back."
no subject
It's a question entirely devoid of slyness, almost charming in its honest surprise if it weren't also tempered by his usual skepticism. He takes another bite of cake, tempted to add on an are you sure you won't catch the Compson misfortune plague? to the question but then again, Swann's already had her fall from grace.
Her Swann dive, as it were.
no subject
She's still beaming, always smiling, although it cools some as she thinks through his reaction a little more, fork frozen in mid-air like she's forgotten there's cake a few inches from her face.
"I mean, if you want to. You don't have to, if you didn't have a good time."
no subject
As if that's the only reason he'd be coming here, convenience. Admitting anything more, especially out loud, seems beyond him for the moment.
"But I'm going to request this cake every time."
no subject
"You're going to wind up like my father. And you haven't even had her butterscotch pie yet!"
Plus, Jason will probably need a break from cake anyway, because he's most likely getting nearly everything on the table wrapped up to take home. The Honeymeads don't let guests leave empty-handed.
no subject
He looks at the way she's picking at her cake, having barely made a dent in her slice.
"You're sure you're not going to eat any more than that?"
no subject
"I'm okay, Jason. Really."
no subject
"Do you have coffee or anything? The drive home's still about a half hour."
no subject
Her smile is gentle, and she pushes some hair behind her ear, standing up (although she's really not much taller than she was sitting) and tidying up the table a little, stacking plates and glasses to make things easier for Eta.
"Oh, of course. Here, you go sit down in the living room, I'll make coffee while Eta cleans up in here. She'll make sure you have some cake to take home."
But seriously, pretty much this whole spread is leaving with Jason. Eat up, Compsons.
no subject
"I can make it my..." But hey, she's offering, and so he lets that slide. He gets up, contentedly full and yet feeling wrung out as an old rag from the last few days at work, and ventures into the sugarpuff den that is her living room. The couch is soft enough to sink into, as if it were some fluffy organ and not made of cushion and wood.
He doesn't intend to fall asleep. It just happens that one moment he's watching lights sparkle off the rose quartz chandelier and the next his eyes are closed, his mouth slightly open as he breathes heavily through it. His natural sprawl spreads a little, one arm over the back of the couch, knees wide.
no subject
"Oh," she says quietly, upon finding Jason, and sets the tray down on the table, careful not to make any noise and wake him.
She considers this for a moment, then figures it would be mean to wake him up when he's obviously tired, even if she only wants to take his shoes off and make him lie down properly. But since that doesn't seem to be an option, she takes a blanket from the back of a chair, one that's obscenely soft and fluffy, just as ivory as everything else in the room, and gently drapes it over him.
"Good night, Jason," she whispers, flicking out the light, then heads for her bedroom.