thecapitol | There is no peace here, war is never cheap, dear

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There is no peace here, war is never cheap, dear

Who| Linden and YOU
What| Catch-all for District 6's famously drug-addled Mentor, with a twist: he's been sober since the staff retreat. If you're District 6, staff or Tribute, it's a good time to get CR with your Panem-native former Victor!
Where| District 6's suites, various other places.
When| Starting at the end of week three and continuing up through after the end of the arena
Warnings/Notes| Mentions of drugs/alcohol, withdrawal, some language probably

Scenario 1: District 6 Suite

Over the last odd decade, Linden has gotten used to living his life on a certain wavelength. The sharp, inquisitive, quick-witted boy who'd won the 63rd Hunger Games hasn't been seen in years; rather, he's been replaced by a jagged wraith who's grown increasingly neurotic and difficult with each passing arena. He's worked to the best of his waning ability, but even if he'd beaten a Career for the crown in his Games, he's not done so well against the Mentors of Districts 1 and 2. They tend to be concerned with upkeep and image, whereas Linden's consistently backslid, resting dazedly on his laurels and saturating his mind and body with dust and rot. If the plan was to shudder out of existence before 30, he's been doing a fine job, but something has shifted lately. Those who watch him with any attentiveness might have noticed him watering down his drinks and tapering himself off Morphling after the crowning of The Signless, and following the staff retreat, he's been... different.

Bored, of course. Adjusting to this new, sober wavelength is a lot like what Linden imagines infants must feel like when they're pulled from the warm and safe darkness of unbeing and flung into a bright, loud, and unforgiving world for the first time. Everything is colder, clearer, and a lot more painful, and that's how you'll find him today, through the worst of the withdrawal but still on a hairtrigger when it comes to the tetchiness that goes hand-in-hand with drying out. He's in front of the television, but rather than being splayed sleepily on the couch, he's hunched forward over the coffee table, grinding his teeth, mumbling to himself indistinctly as he moves both sides of a marble chessboard. The process is a lot looser and less rigid than an actual game, but he seems to be taking it very seriously; the frost and rust crowding in his intellect are starting to fall away, and it's left him restless and malcontent. It's not how President Snow likes to see him; he's starting to resemble, for the first time in a long time, the type of man who could actually challenge the status quo.

Though he might seem as prickly and unapproachable as ever, he's craving stimulation beyond what his solitary strategizing can provide him with. Anyone who wants to speak with him had better be absolutely certain that they're prepared to weather the redirection of his needle-sharp focus, however.

Scenario 2: Training Center

Linden is still not hale or anything even resembling hearty; in fact, he looks pale and drawn beyond what is typical for him, as if he's been ill lately, which isn't far from the truth. Morphling withdrawal is a bitch, not to mention the effects of practically subsisting exclusively on alcoholic calories and then ceasing to. That being said, he's clean and well-dressed, even if clothing that should be fitted hangs on a hollower frame. He moves quickly from station to station; he's not here to work out, but to keep an eye on those Tributes who are out of this Arena's running and preparing for the next one. His attention isn't solely limited to District 6's prospects, though; he's certainly giving other Tributes (and Mentors) sidelong glances, sizing them up, considering their strengths and any areas he can suggest that his competitors exploit.

If you watch him very carefully, you can see him making quick exits occasionally to deal with bouts of withdrawal-induced nausea, but otherwise, he's surprisingly present and diligent. He especially has an eye out for any sponsors who might be here to size up Tributes; they will not escape without getting a detailed explanation of why Clementine and Karkat are worthy of gifts in the arena, so concise that it might as well be bullet-pointed.

Scenario 3: Around the Capitol

Morphling has a way of making the hours melt together or disappear altogether. It's one of Linden's favorite side-effects, actually, and he misses it fiercely now that he is forced to honestly deal with time again. He had few reasons to leave the Tower before, his needs being limited to anything that could chemically lock him snug and safe in his own mind. He's freshly clean, and he knows that this is the part that's the hardest. The longer he goes without his favorite vice, the better he knows it will feel when he welcomes it back into his veins and his life.

It would be so easy. There are viewing parties everywhere, painted faces that have an intimate knowledge of him and the handful of things that he loves. This city has destroyed him, but it's also given him the adoration that every Victor is due. It's almost impossible to go four steps without running into a champagne flute or a pill offered like a talisman, with a wink and a nudge.

There have to be other things to do. Learning how to enjoy actual nourishment again in the form of the rich food the Capitol has to offer, a brisk walk, seeing a bawdy, raunchy live show... but fresh through withdrawal, scarcely clean and still weak on his feet, Linden could use a few suggestions. Otherwise, the music and laughter of reveling drunks and users threatens to drag him under.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

When it comes to perception and the ability to read character, Linden is more shrewd and discerning than most, and he sees no attempts at pandering in Phillip's request. It's a good thing; sincerity is a strange an difficult thing for him for a myriad of reasons, since one who convincingly affected it has burned him badly in a way that left a very obvious and literal scar. It rips across his throat and is significant enough that it wasn't fixed for him after his Games; it's decidedly out of vogue now, but in past years, others have copied it by modifying their own bodies. It's disgusted him, and made him solemn, bitter, and extremely slow to trust.

So far, Linden thinks that this sincerity is probably Phillip's greatest potential boon. If it gets past Linden, it will absolutely affect the Capitol's citizens.

"You do, don't you?" he asks. "I don't think that anyone can perfectly relate to the experiences of anyone else, but something in your life has made you believe that you can. Have you been an artist, or something similar?"

"N-No, I wasn't...the most I did was make sure the restaurant looked good and welcoming for customers. Painting, repairing the animatronics, making sure they were welcoming." They weren't his creations but he loved and cared for them as his own.

"I was stuck doing a lot of work, there was a high turnover rate there," Phil explained while keeping the exact reasons why a secret. If the Capitol were to find out about the animatronics' true nature, there was no telling what they'd do with that information. No, the "joy" of creation came when the dead children did their work on the guards unfortunate enough to slip.

"I understand that an artist leaves a little bit of themselves in their work a-and how precious it can be."

Linden listens, canting his head to the side as he does so before taking a slow, careful sip of water. It still shocks his system a little when he swallows it, so he's cautious about it, feeling the empty, tasteless, flat substance sliding down his throat and pooling coldly and unpleasantly in his stomach.

"It sounds like you were dedicated to your job, even if..."

...you failed.

He clears his throat.

"Why was there a high turnover rate? Did it have to do with the people who died? Why did you stay?" he makes a face, setting his glass down, finished with it despite having only barely touched it.

"Was there already so much of you there that you couldn't?"

"I a-" He had to remember this wasn't his hometown, this was Panem, "I was. Even after those deaths. I stayed because I-" the last statement clicked in Phil's mind. "Yeah...I left a lot of me in there. Enough that I couldn't let someone else bear the weight and consequences of my failures."

He learned to coexist with the ever-present threat of death, and what each of those children were. It wasn't until he was forced out, "retirement" at thirty-one, that he had to look for someone else. He was getting older, and increasingly unable to cope with the stresses. Adding to that something akin to post-traumatic stress disorder and the hallucinations brought on by the haunting, even the notoriously cheap Fazbear Entertainment had to admit. He had to investigate who that monster was, and give the kids peace.

"Not everyone could survive the five nights needed to get the full contract." The word "survive" was used in full effect here.

Edited 2015-03-05 01:12 (UTC)

Had Linden known just how literally some people left parts of themselves in Phillip's place of work, it would have chilled him... and he's been watching and participating in the practice of children slaughtering each other for his entire life, so that is saying something.

"What if someone else could have done a better job?" Linden inquires, staring at the glass of water as if wishing it would magically turn into something stronger. "It's not my intention to accuse you, or say that your decision was wrong, but... what if you were the piece that made the rest of the equation bad? And what did 'surviving' entail?" he asks. His eyes are wide and serious; in Panem, most people take "surviving" very literally, rather than just enduring something grueling or difficult, and who can blame them?

The piece that made the rest of the equation wrong... that probably was exactly was Phil felt whenever he thought about that day he and the CEO hired the man. The man that would later become the serial killer that would paint the insides of those childhood icons with red. "I was hoping to retire and pass along the job to someone new," he answered softly, knowing that Mike Schmidt was probably gone and away from the restaurant. Or dead. "I was getting too old for that sort of job."

That last question was only met with the tense answer, "The word you think it does. Uh, this wasn't your usual sorta place to take your family." Understatement of the century.

"Too old?" Linden glances the other man up and down uncertainly. "You can't be much older than 30. That's the prime of most people's life, isn't it?"

Not his; Linden hit his prime when he was 15 years old and it's been downhill from there. The result is someone wasted and malnourished and staring; he could be ten years older or ten years younger than his actual age (somewhere in his late twenties), and one would be hard-pressed to tell which it is.

"Every place is different, just as every Tribute is different. I don't know what you think 'usual' means," Linden says, returning his gaze to his chessboard. He's not playing a game with himself so much as using the pieces' paths to help him focus on what's being said.

"Yeah, I'm 31, and under normal circumstances, I'd be...in my prime yes, but these weren't," Gray sighed out as he watched Linden stare his game, "But under enormous stresses and expectations, not to mention the failures I made, and their consequences, I-I was told to retire. I wasn't happy about it, what with the risks of the job, but it was imposed on me." The job itself sounded less like a security guard and more like holding the line for an inevitable dread.

Before Phillip up answered that question fully, he had to ask if there was a way to tell his mentor in private. Something told him that if he could at least tell someone, someone he could trust, maybe there was hope for him yet. Linden looked wasted and frail but the guard knew that for him to be a mentor, he'd won the Hunger Games.

Edited 2015-03-05 06:57 (UTC)

Linden's figuring out that Phillip is more self-aware than a lot of Tributes; it's not just self-deprecation that makes him take the blame for the things that happened, he genuinely feels responsible and like he could have helped the people who died. He recognizes what guilt looks like at a glance, and that no amount of arguing or rationalization can alleviate it when it's felt so truly.

He knows that the requirements for security guards in places that typical families frequent in the Capitol aren't too stringent. An Avox could do that job, and frequently they do. It's work that's seen as beneath qualified Peacekeepers, unless something is expected to go wrong.

"I see. A dishonorable discharge," Linden replies; he's seen a few. Just because it's nearly impossible to get fired from being a Mentor after one has won the Hunger Games doesn't mean it hasn't happened, and they were spectacular cases, as one would expect from a career defined by extremes. "And you weren't so much upset about losing a job you liked, but concerned for your replacement, so... what wasn't 'usual?'"

The cores of his dark eyes are dead and empty as he turns them on Phillip, but they are not moving until he gets an answer he finds satisfactory.

Edited 2015-03-05 17:32 (UTC)

What comes out of Phillip's mouth is a very summarized and almost painfully censored series of events that happened at Freddy Fazbear's Family Pizzeria, "Hope you're ready for a long one."

"When I was a kid, there used to be this place called Fredbear's Family Diner. It had these really great and fun animatronics that would sing and play with children, it was wonderful," even after all this time and suffering, the man still held the characters dearly. "I-I really liked Foxy the Pirate and I would run around pretending-um, you don't need to know that."

He became a little red at that, no one needed to hear him fanboy about that, even less before what followed.

"I started working there as a waiter, part-time, headed up to manager when the first murder happened." The mental image of that tiny bruised hand sticking out of the pile of garbage, never really left his mind. "We didn't have that many guards back then, the killer used a blind spot at the restaurant to take that boy out the back. I still hear the mother's screams when the ambulance took her son away. Then things got...unreal. Like, um, paranormal sort of unreal, if you can believe that."

He tried his best to summarize the events of the new and improved Freddy Fazbear's, from his brief tenure as a dayshift manager, to hiring a man who seemed to be a bit too eager to be a guard. It was even harder to try and explain the suddenly malfunctioning "State of the Art" robots that attacked the night guards, the haunting, finally the additional disappearances along with the Bite of '87. It was hard enough to keep himself together, especially when it came to finding what was left of the children inside his childhood icons and being forced to clean them out or risk being implicated, but it had to be said. Linden had a right to know about where his tribute came from. His thumb kept wiping his old badge as a way of keeping himself grounded and not break down and go back to the Bar.

"After Jeremy's last night, I-I took on the night shift to see what I could do, and if I could continue investigating the deaths. Heh, I held out for five years, you know?"

If Linden's put off at all by the prospect of a long story, he gives no indication, but he does make himself a little more comfortable. He settles back on into the couch, stretching out lengthwise, his scrawny body barely causing the cushions to sink under his meager weight.

His brows raise slightly at what he "doesn't need to know", but he lets Phillip continue. It sounds horrific, but as a Mentor who has seen children die in almost all conceivable ways, he's not as disturbed hearing about the details as some might be. To an outsider, it might look callous; to a Panem citizen, he is a strong, stoic Mentor doing his job especially well.

"Five years is a long time," he says, by way of validating the man's sacrifices and trauma. That's the least he can do, isn't it, even if he's lousy at sympathy? "Did you find what you were looking for, and..." he pauses, considering, before going ahead and asking anyway. "Did you ever get to fuck the fox?"

That fox comment stunned Phil for a moment, that statement happened, and started laughing while shaking his head, "I was ten! I wasn't thinking about fu-THAT, I was running around wrecking people's gardens, pretending I was a pirate! Holy shit! What's a sense of decency! I can't ever say that again."

If Linden's intent was to get a rise out of the guard or break the chain of events, it worked. It does allow Gray to recognize the attempt at sympathy with a more familiar smile, less weighed down by the memories.

"I haven't laughed this hard about anything related to Freddy's in years," he blurted out. "But not really, I died before that."

Linden has Phillip pegged for an inherently sad man, and his laughter is startling to say the least. He blinks and sits up abruptly when the sound cracks the room's silence, but relaxes when it becomes clear that nothing is wrong and he has nothing to be afraid of or guard against. Linden goes through this process a depressing number of times each day, far more now that he's trying to quit his favorite habits.

If anything, though, the implication was enough to break through a shield that the other man has been holding up. It's a good thing, so Linden cautiously accepts it as such.

"A sense of decency? You're in the Capitol," Linden reminds him mildly. "Here, we make innocent people fight each other to the death, and if you admire someone... with enough money and the right connections, you can fuck them. It's a part of life. Do you mean your death in the Arena?" he asks; the jarring subject changes are probably something that Phillip should get used to sooner rather than later.

"Yes I can...understand that part about the Capitol," that flustered Phil back into being serious again. Mostly because he preferred to earn his lays, not use such shady deals, "I'm pretty sure, um, paid company works just the same here as it did in my world."

Subject changes were Phil's bread and butter back in Freddy's, his messages could cause whiplash going from warnings about death to bullshit excuses about the bots' behavior. He quickly caught the change and shook his head, "The Capitol reaped me just as I was being stuffed into an animatronic suit, sir. I was about to die...and probably someone else did in my place."

"Really?" Linden asks. "It seems to shock most of the new Tributes when they learn the details. Have any of your admirers ever paid to be with you, then?"

His tone is casual, even blase, as he moves another chess piece on his board.

"Hm. What was that like? It must have hurt. Crushing force, maybe... dismemberment, beforehand? I'm trying to picture it."

"I didn't know I had admirers until you told me. Much less want to pay to be with me," The guard admitted. He thought he'd be flattered by the sentiment, that he could make money out of showing up and posing as a date for some Capitolite. But in the end, the surreal nature of it all stopped him from fully enjoying the 'privilege'. "I wouldn't know how to carry myself in such a situation. I was a manager, everything I did was behind the scene."

The answer comes out as frank as Phil can make, "It hurt like a bitch...when I first came here, I still had the bruises from them holding me down. Neck and arms, so I couldn't escape and be forced to look up to the machinery."

"It's early for them here..." Linden clarifies. "I was talking about where you're from. You said it was the same, over there. Or maybe you thought I meant something else, but if you are an attractive Tribute, or a Victor... certain things are expected of you, often. If they are, you learn..."

He drifts away from the topic vaguely, reaching for his water and downing a generous mouthful. It's more of a reflex than actual thirst, the habit of reaching for whatever beverage that's closest and drinking to take the edge off of upsetting topics. This sober business, he's realizing, is going to suck.

"What did it smell like?" he inquires, turning the glass in his hands and staring at the television screen without actually looking at it. "What did your senses, aside from sight, tell you about the moment of your death?"

Phil might be figuring out that small talk isn't really Linden's strong suit.

Phillip figured the moment and he simply answered, "I thought you meant paying for adult company..." The suggestive and almost embarrassed look on the guard's face was enough to get him back onto gorier subjects. He never really liked the idea of paying for intimacy, rather have one-night stands on his rare nights off to remind himself he was indeed still a man and not a ghost. The way Linden spoke, he quickly switched over.

"It's kinda indescribable...bleach with decomposition...I smelled the latter in the arena. A lot..." For this, Gray closed his eyes and tried to repress the memories again, "I could feel cold metal press against my forehead, cracking the skin. I could feel blood fall along my nose and eyes. I felt that coppery taste in my mouth as I felt Chica's hand crush my windpipe...I didn't scream, I knew what was coming and if I struggled, they made it worse. I knew it was coming until I heard a commotion."

The man resumed eye contact, "Not a pleasant place to be in, you know?" Visceral, yes.

One thing that tends to come through clearly and overwhelmingly in Linden is his inability to do anything in moderation. If it can be binged on to the point of blacking out, he'll engage in it with a terrifying, single-minded intensity. This pertains to drugs and alcohol, of course, but it's also true for sensation-seeking, it what seems to be an endless cycle of numbing his ability to feel and feeling everything to the point of complete saturation.

He's hungry for details, even when the picture is far from appetizing. He overindulges even well past the point of sickness, and now that there's not a bottle of much-loved liquor within reach, he's looking for other directions to take his urges.

In short, as long as Phillip continues to answer his questions, he'll probably keep asking them, feeding vicariously on the rich rottenness of the man's experiences. He closes his eyes to slip into the description more fully. Fortunately, it's not too difficult; he's seen at least a dozen Game deaths that ended up this way, broadcast to the whole of Panem.

"I know."

He does. There's no question. The scar ripping across his throat even says he might have some direct experience with the windpipe part of the story. He meets Phillip's gaze unflinchingly with his own sunken gray eyes.

"You're going to have to think about how you want to try to overpower them if you meet them again... you're probably aware of this already, but the Gamemakers are virtually limitless when it comes to manufacturing horrors for you to face in the Arena. They will favor things that can get a rise out of you. If you could plan and you were prepared... water, for example. Would water affect them? Short-circuit them, if they are animatronic?"

Everything about Phillip fell apart in that moment, "S-So is it true that...that you had a fox pirate in th-that Kids' Arena? R-Rotten and falling apart?"

Sandy told him that way back when he'd arrived in Panem but the mere thought of it being true, that one of those children were sent here to kill more people for the audience. He had to speak up now. He shook his head and his tone became that much more professional.

"No, shorting them out never worked. They're relentless towards adults, even more so males. They're not fueled by electricity, at least not in the conventional sense. You have to disable their servos, they have to lock up. H-Have them fall in a way that keeps them from moving. Give it ten minutes and they deactivate. I've never tested it but it's part of a failsafe," Gray stated and pointed to his neck, "Beheading them doesn't work, and pumping them full of electricity makes them worse."

Watching the man collapse and cave emotionally is fascinating. Linden doesn't comment, just as he doesn't judge; truly, he has no place to. "You heard that, then," he says with a soft sigh. "It's true, and I'm sorry, but that's the situation. They can and will make anything and throw it into the Arena with you if they think it will help the ratings."

Someone falling apart completely would absolutely do that.

"Failsafes really should be tested..." he grumbles. "It sounds like a mess. But I'm telling you as your Mentor that odds are, you'll get the chance to test it. Hopefully later, rather than sooner."

That emotional roller-coaster would conclude as Phil looked directly at Linden and asked, "What did the Capitol do with it? Did they keep it or did they send it back? I-I need to see it or at least know if it was one of my kids." If it was, he could at least use the f

He didn't bother correcting that those were animatronics, not children but he couldn't care about such minor details.

"To disable them, of course," Gray quickly covered himself, a stern element to his smile. "They're quite dangerous...and as your tribute, I completely agree. If it is Foxy, you will need flashlights. That one's a bit twitchy and would be warded off with flashing the lights in a strobe fashion."

Linden shakes his head dismissively at Phil's question, biting one of his bloodless lips and dropping his gaze to the ground.

"That's not going to be possible. The things they put in the Arena are generated... it's not quite the same thing, but it's similar to holographic technology of some centuries ago. It was created for that Arena, and like all other pieces of it other than the Tributes, it's gone now."

Linden's answer gave Phillip some measure of peace, "Good, okay, I-I can deal with that." No not really but the hint was fully appreciated. "And certainly what the Capitol deems...Arena appropriate next time."

Realizing something about Linden, "When you experienced your Arena, and I really don't want to be insensitive," Lord know the public is, "Did they try something similar with you?" Phil immediately regretted the question, "Never mind, I-I'm probably keeping you." Good job Gray.

He blinks, surprised by the question but not noticeably offended. Phil's more sensitive than most Panem citizens about it, and it's only fair, given that he's told Linden a great deal about his own homeworld and the most disturbing things that go bump in the night.

"You need to understand that before these Games, with all of you brought in from elsewhere," he says, "Tributes were thought of as sacrifices. 24 of them every year, and only one got to win. The things you learned about each Tribute were directly proportionate to how long they survived... it's pointless to know all the little details about someone's life if they're just going to die in the Bloodbath, so... our horrors were broader, made to fit a theme but the types of things that humans are supposed to fear. My Arena was a cave system; it wasn't a bad fit for me, since I worked in a factory before my Games and was used to climbing into dark, cramped spaces. It was dark... damp, quiet enough to hear your blood moving if you got too far away from other Tributes. The stalactites and stalagmites were poisonous on the outside but the only source of drinkable water. There were shallow pools with carnivorous fish. Awful things, but nothing tailor-made for me, that I would find the most awful."

He might not be saying everything on his mind. He does shiver slightly, shoulders drawing forward and tensing.

"After you win and people learn more about you, though... that's a different story. Then everyone knows what you find the most awful, and you're constantly at their mercy. I wouldn't wish it on most people in the outlying Districts."

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