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)
thecapitol2015-03-10 09:48 pm
whatisay) wrote in thecapitol2015-03-10 09:48 pm
Flecks of the Heavens' Spat Out Spit [OPEN]
WHO| Jason Compson and Open; Jason and Swann; Jason, Rick and Daryl
WHAT| Jason gets a migraine and is helpless; Jason beats an Avox; Jason gives Swann a gift; Rick and Daryl get the shotguns.
WHEN| Week 6
WHERE| D7 Suites; Swann's place
WARNINGS/NOTES| Avox abuse, migraines, general Jason awfulness. If you're going to tag the second prompt, please PP or PM me first so we can figure out where it's going and how far to take it, because Jason won't hesitate to put someone in jail.
I. Open
He knew he was going to have one of his headaches from the beginning of the morning, when every light seemed to have a ring radiating off of it and everything seemed to smell like rainwater. The one upside to the curse of these migraines is that he usually gets a few hours head start on them, with the feeling of deadly premonition, and so he spends most of the day trying to finish up everything as quickly as he can and clock out early. The calls to Sponsors and thank you cards to donors becomes a race against time, one which he sees himself losing too late to actually prevent disaster.
First he can't see, and then he can't move. Even breathing seems to put too much strain on him, and the throbbing, tightening hammering in his head gets worse with every exhale. The inside of his body feels like a live wire, sparking away inside his skull at camera-shutter speed. Nausea roils inside his throat and stomach, furling and unfurling like the tide.
When he opens his eyes the light is too bright, speckled with floating spots and halos, and he feels like the universe itself is trying to cram itself through his eyesockets and that his bones have made the opening too small to fit. So he keeps them shut and rolls over on the District Seven couch until he's facedown in a pillow, sweating slightly, trying not to whimper.
He has no hope of driving himself home, and even the idea of getting up seems a cruel joke. He tries twice, and both times a surge of nausea and a thunderclap of pain force him back down. So he lies there, hoping to whatever powers that be that his Tributes stick to their schedules and don't come bother him.
II. Open (please read note)
What started off as a strong Arena quickly loses those good odds as the District Seven Tributes die in the field and the District Suite gets repopulated. The worse it looks, the worse Jason's temper gets, until he's liable to throw something at the slightest provocation, which the Games video updates seem eager to supply him with. At least twice this week he's broken a glass, and yesterday smacked a table so hard that he has a ring of bruising around his finger like a wedding band.
With only Nick left in the Arena, Jason and Emily's chances are getting desperate, and the worst blow comes to Jason's ego when he realizes that no amount of fawning and flattery and networking seems to be enough to get Nick more supplies in the Arena. It stings to feel powerlessness, and to make it worse the only person willing to spot Nick a fire-starting kit's funds will only do it on condition that Jason go drinking with him - no sobriety allowed. Jason turns it down, but doesn't leave with his head held high so much as rankled and humiliated, and every ungrateful glance from his Tributes reminds him of how his family used to practically own this damn country and yet here he is, exposing his belly to anyone with money, helpless and inept and so, so frustrated with his life. Dressed in a suit he got from someone else's charity and supporting a home full of ingrates and lonely and with a fury as endless as the sky.
Whatever it is that set Jason off this time, it isn't sated just by smashing a piece of kitchenware. This time he backhands the Avox who rushes in to try and clean up the coffee mug he throws against the floor, sending them into the couch.
III. Swann
For someone who usually agonizes over every half-assi that goes to a necessary cause, Jason doesn't seem to mind spending money on Swann. He complains about it, at times, but it's more to go through the motions of complaining than because it actually bothers him. He buys her coffee when he can and tells her to save her money when they get lunch, getting sulky and defensive when she insists on splitting the tab. Sometimes he buys her a pastry on his way to pick her up for carpooling, although he doesn't let her eat it in the vehicle, and he has yet to ask her to help pay for fuel.
Today he shows up at her place with a large carrier in the back of his car, covered by a blanket, with a towel underneath it to protect the seats. Something inside is making scratching sounds. Jason looks a little frazzled, and shows up a few minutes late from a different route than he usually takes. He presses a button inside the car and the door opens for Swann.
"You coming, Honeymead?"
IV. Daryl and Rick
The rumors spread quickly after the Crowning, and all of them rub Jason the wrong way. A few photographs of him and Beth at the Crowning, him whispering into her ear, have made the rounds on tabloids, some of them even frontpage for the publications hungry enough to fabricate a scandal for readership. Jason's certain that he wouldn't ever touch a Tribute like that, but the fact that people are so eager to believe it of him leaves his pride feeling excoriated.
For his part, Jason doesn't treat Beth any differently, except for being a bit more stiff and cranky with her than he might have been before. But whispers swarm around them like a plague of mosquitoes, making a to-do out of something as simple as him Escorting her to a photoshoot with horses (A PONY FOR A PRICE?, a headline questions; another goes even more outrageous and wonders if Beth will say 'neigh' to marriage). He can only imagine the explanations she's making to the passel of Southerners who seem so eager to protect her.
Right now he's in the District Seven kitchen, glasses parked precariously on the tip of his nose as he writes by hand some math for the District budget. He's taken to putting most of his notes on his phone lately; he used to be able to leave writing around, but that was when most Tributes were entirely illiterate. His suit jacket hangs over the back of a chair and his shirt sleeves are pushed up to his elbows. A cup of coffee, long-cooled, sits beside him, and he occasionally asks his phone to answer some percentages questions for him.
WHAT| Jason gets a migraine and is helpless; Jason beats an Avox; Jason gives Swann a gift; Rick and Daryl get the shotguns.
WHEN| Week 6
WHERE| D7 Suites; Swann's place
WARNINGS/NOTES| Avox abuse, migraines, general Jason awfulness. If you're going to tag the second prompt, please PP or PM me first so we can figure out where it's going and how far to take it, because Jason won't hesitate to put someone in jail.
I. Open
He knew he was going to have one of his headaches from the beginning of the morning, when every light seemed to have a ring radiating off of it and everything seemed to smell like rainwater. The one upside to the curse of these migraines is that he usually gets a few hours head start on them, with the feeling of deadly premonition, and so he spends most of the day trying to finish up everything as quickly as he can and clock out early. The calls to Sponsors and thank you cards to donors becomes a race against time, one which he sees himself losing too late to actually prevent disaster.
First he can't see, and then he can't move. Even breathing seems to put too much strain on him, and the throbbing, tightening hammering in his head gets worse with every exhale. The inside of his body feels like a live wire, sparking away inside his skull at camera-shutter speed. Nausea roils inside his throat and stomach, furling and unfurling like the tide.
When he opens his eyes the light is too bright, speckled with floating spots and halos, and he feels like the universe itself is trying to cram itself through his eyesockets and that his bones have made the opening too small to fit. So he keeps them shut and rolls over on the District Seven couch until he's facedown in a pillow, sweating slightly, trying not to whimper.
He has no hope of driving himself home, and even the idea of getting up seems a cruel joke. He tries twice, and both times a surge of nausea and a thunderclap of pain force him back down. So he lies there, hoping to whatever powers that be that his Tributes stick to their schedules and don't come bother him.
II. Open (please read note)
What started off as a strong Arena quickly loses those good odds as the District Seven Tributes die in the field and the District Suite gets repopulated. The worse it looks, the worse Jason's temper gets, until he's liable to throw something at the slightest provocation, which the Games video updates seem eager to supply him with. At least twice this week he's broken a glass, and yesterday smacked a table so hard that he has a ring of bruising around his finger like a wedding band.
With only Nick left in the Arena, Jason and Emily's chances are getting desperate, and the worst blow comes to Jason's ego when he realizes that no amount of fawning and flattery and networking seems to be enough to get Nick more supplies in the Arena. It stings to feel powerlessness, and to make it worse the only person willing to spot Nick a fire-starting kit's funds will only do it on condition that Jason go drinking with him - no sobriety allowed. Jason turns it down, but doesn't leave with his head held high so much as rankled and humiliated, and every ungrateful glance from his Tributes reminds him of how his family used to practically own this damn country and yet here he is, exposing his belly to anyone with money, helpless and inept and so, so frustrated with his life. Dressed in a suit he got from someone else's charity and supporting a home full of ingrates and lonely and with a fury as endless as the sky.
Whatever it is that set Jason off this time, it isn't sated just by smashing a piece of kitchenware. This time he backhands the Avox who rushes in to try and clean up the coffee mug he throws against the floor, sending them into the couch.
III. Swann
For someone who usually agonizes over every half-assi that goes to a necessary cause, Jason doesn't seem to mind spending money on Swann. He complains about it, at times, but it's more to go through the motions of complaining than because it actually bothers him. He buys her coffee when he can and tells her to save her money when they get lunch, getting sulky and defensive when she insists on splitting the tab. Sometimes he buys her a pastry on his way to pick her up for carpooling, although he doesn't let her eat it in the vehicle, and he has yet to ask her to help pay for fuel.
Today he shows up at her place with a large carrier in the back of his car, covered by a blanket, with a towel underneath it to protect the seats. Something inside is making scratching sounds. Jason looks a little frazzled, and shows up a few minutes late from a different route than he usually takes. He presses a button inside the car and the door opens for Swann.
"You coming, Honeymead?"
IV. Daryl and Rick
The rumors spread quickly after the Crowning, and all of them rub Jason the wrong way. A few photographs of him and Beth at the Crowning, him whispering into her ear, have made the rounds on tabloids, some of them even frontpage for the publications hungry enough to fabricate a scandal for readership. Jason's certain that he wouldn't ever touch a Tribute like that, but the fact that people are so eager to believe it of him leaves his pride feeling excoriated.
For his part, Jason doesn't treat Beth any differently, except for being a bit more stiff and cranky with her than he might have been before. But whispers swarm around them like a plague of mosquitoes, making a to-do out of something as simple as him Escorting her to a photoshoot with horses (A PONY FOR A PRICE?, a headline questions; another goes even more outrageous and wonders if Beth will say 'neigh' to marriage). He can only imagine the explanations she's making to the passel of Southerners who seem so eager to protect her.
Right now he's in the District Seven kitchen, glasses parked precariously on the tip of his nose as he writes by hand some math for the District budget. He's taken to putting most of his notes on his phone lately; he used to be able to leave writing around, but that was when most Tributes were entirely illiterate. His suit jacket hangs over the back of a chair and his shirt sleeves are pushed up to his elbows. A cup of coffee, long-cooled, sits beside him, and he occasionally asks his phone to answer some percentages questions for him.
II
One such person is Nill, of District 9. She's already saved him from snapping badly very recently, and he owes her a quieter, gentler thanks now that all the excitement has died down. He takes the stairs to give himself a chance to rehearse some of what he wants to say, but when he's approaching 7's floor, he hears a series of sounds that seem consistent with the noise that's been coming from upstairs for the last week, with a slightly more alarming edge. Maybe it's because Linden's closer, and maybe it's because it sounds like a person was involved, but he's striding toward the suite's door and letting himself in, newly sharp gaze taking in the... frankly deplorable scene in front of him. The Avox has taken the blow to the mouth, mashing her lip on her teeth and drawing blood, and she stares up from her place on the couch as she hastily tries to regain the silent composure she's supposed to affect at all times, regardless of circumstances or abuse.
"Hey, what the fuck?" he demands snappishly, turning toward the source of the violence and fully expecting to see an unruly Tribute from another world who took things too far. "You don't hit the..."
...oh.
The corner of Linden's mouth twitches. It's not the beginning of a smile, but more of a tic, acknowledgment with scarcely-contained contempt glittering behind his dark, bruised-looking eyes. Even during his Tribute days, he heard whispers that this guy was the Escort you didn't want. While he did his job well, all things considered, he had a reputation as a nasty piece of work. In the following years as a Mentor, Linden's come to see that proven definitively, and the bad blood was only amplified by the fact that District 10's boy had come in third in the 63rd Games, stabbed by Scorpii while Linden held him. Jason had held a petty grudge over it long after Linden's Victory Tour; rumors indicated something about a vacation supporting his Tribute that late into the Games had prevented him from taking.
"I hadn't heard you were reassigned to 7," Linden says stiffly, crossing his arms over his chest. He does't strike a formidable figure; though he's of average height, years of drug abuse and their substitution for actual nutrition seem to have stunted the growth of his bones and musculature, both of which have changed little since he was a rangy teenager. Derisively, he adds "...you should know better. What with your good breeding, and all."
no subject
He doesn't even remember what the District Ten male's name was, nor how he tried to market him. When he thinks of Linden, he remembers a District budget in the red and losing money on illicit gambling on his own Tribute, and then having to cancel going out to District Eleven after the Crowning because of how the funds weren't there. Instead, he'd spent it the same way he always did, wrangling his brother and niece and mother, listening to them bitch and scream and whine as if they were being paid handsomely for it.
After long enough, it sort of blurs into a long line of frustration, split only by the steady and mindless divisions of years, months and days.
Jason doesn't back away from the scared Avox, nor make any motion to clean up the coffee cup. He just knocked it over this time and didn't like the Avox reminding him of his own clumsiness by intervening. That's what set it all off. The coffee pools into a place on the floor where the floor's uneven, and Jason rolls his eyes at that, that the Tribute Center was so quickly renovated for the Neverending Quell that they couldn't even get the hardwood flat.
"I don't see what my family name has to do with how I treat the furniture." Nor does he see why this gangly slip of a man who looks like he hasn't even bothered to try fitting in with the Capitol's demanding standards of presentation thinks he has any right to even speak to him. He knows Linden's a Victor, one of the addicts, if Jason recalls, and it makes his lip curl.
"I hadn't heard you'd been released from rehab. That's where you were last, wasn't it? If not it should have been."
no subject
Linden doesn't make a move to either physically impede Jason or help the Avox; he merely stands, watching her out of the corner of his eye as she picks herself up and starts to stagger painfully away. He knows that other Avoxes will help her get patched up, that it's not his place to play doctor (though some Tributes would perhaps react in such a way.)
No, it seems like his place is right here.
"Clearly, you don't see," he retorts dryly. "But others do, and what's more, they feel your shame secondhand. I suppose it's fortunate, that staff exist to shoulder the burdens of those who struggle to manage them alone..."
He kneels to pick up a fragment of the dropped mug, running a fingertip along an edge as if to compare its sharpness with that of his chastising words.
"Rehab exists for that reason, as well. I've learned so many useful things, like... how to control destructive urges? Maybe you should look into it. Become a better man for your own sake, if not for the furniture's."
no subject
Just like now, listening to Linden prattle on in a way that Jason's sure are words that make sense to somebody, but sound a hell of a lot like bullshit to him. Jason's eyes seem to sink into his face for a moment, or possibly his cheekbones just pronounce themselves more when his lips tighten into a sort of bemused frown. If Jason had had any interest in seeking therapy when it was first mentioned to him, he might have been in treatment decades ago.
"I think I'll pass on lectures about being a better man from a wrung-out dishrag of a person who still stinks of morphling, thanks." It reminds him of his father, of the fact that Jason couldn't tell if the coffin actually smelled like alcohol or if he was just imagining it.
He takes a step forward towards Linden, looming despite not being all that much larger, not even looking at the sharp piece of ceramic because it wouldn't even occur to him that a Districter might be stupid enough to attack him. "Get up. The Avoxes will clean it up. That's what they're here for."
If Linden doesn't get up immediately, Jason will grab his arm and haul him up.
no subject
His round, dark eyes narrow almost imperceptibly at the blatant insult, and there's that twitch at the corner of his mouth again. He's about to say something else, arranging his thoughts into something sharp, jagged and creatively hurtful, but then he's being ordered to stand, and all he can do is stare in bewilderment at the privileged, grown brat who's speaking to him like a servant or a Tribute. That in itself is not acceptable, but when his arm is being seized and pulled, a switch is flipped, unique to certain Victors and the long-term damage their Arenas inflict on them. Though Linden's bony and light and therefore easy to haul upright, he's still holding that sharp bit of ceramic, and his hand tightens around it enough to dig into his skin and draw blood.
Viciously and reflexively, he strikes like a pit viper, and if Jason's reaction isn't an instant retreat, it's entirely possible that he'll wind up with a slice across his forearm. If Linden can reach and Jason was foolish enough to get so close, the slice may even have made it to his cheek.
no subject
He doesn't feel pain so much as shock, and that animates his arm to shove Linden back against the couch. Jason stumbles back, hand to his face, realizing his fingers are wet well before the fact that skin's broken. There's a slash nearly two inches across slicing across Jason's high cheekbone. Out of instinctive violence he lashes his arm out and sends another glass from the table flying in Linden's general direction before taking another step back.
"Jesus. Jesus Christ!" He very nearly throws a kick at Linden's midsection, but the shock of bleeding throws him off, and instead he grabs his phone from his pocket and dials a number. He's been attacked by a Mentor, a Districter, and all of anarchy and bedlam is running rampant on his sense of how the world works.
"I need the Peacekeepers here immediately. And a medic. The District Six Mentor just attacked me with a deadly weapon." His voice is so harsh and clotted that the words are barely intelligible.
no subject
For a second, he'd been in his Arena again, knowing that he had to lash out as powerfully as he was able to even stand a chance. Now, it's absurd, because he's in 7's suite and he is about to get his ass kicked by a bratty dynasty Escort who is not accustomed to bleeding for bad behavior. He blinks as the glass shatters against the wall several feet from his head, but otherwise doesn't move a muscle. His breaths come quickly and shallowly, the only current outlet for the adrenaline coursing through his veins.
Carefully, almost delicately, he sets the piece of bloody, broken ceramic on the coffee table in front of him, centering it meticulously. He draws back slowly when two Peacekeepers rush into the room, holding both of his hands where they can be seen; they are swiftly cuffed. One begins to restrain him further, but relaxes his hold when Linden puts up no resistance whatsoever; ultimately, the law enforcer is somewhat worried about breaking him in half.
"What happened here?" the other one demands, as the medic pushes past him to examine Jason's cheek. "Where's the deadly weapon?"
Linden stares at the fragment of ceramic on the coffee table until someone relevant's eyes follow. "I must have blacked out," he says rigidly, glancing back to the frothing Escort. "I guess I posed a real threat to this poor man, didn't I?"
It's questionable just how self-aware the barb is, but it sure sounds absentminded as hell.
no subject
The medic tells Jason to hold still while they examine the cut, muttering something like 'four stitches', while Jason treats the responder with nearly as much hostility as he did Linden. He hates doctors and physicians and EMTs and all sorts of providers, seeing them as no better than charlatans leeching his family dry, and worse, fearing them to have some sort of extrasensory power to sniff out the sickness that must run in the Compson bloodline, the rotten, pungent pheromone of Compson men that woos them into psychosis and tempts the Compson women to bitchery and sluttishness.
"Well, you sure drew blood," one of the Peacekeepers huffs as he directs Linden towards the elevator.
"No, I don't want to press charges, do I look like I have the time to press charges?" Jason says in the background, shoving the medic's hand away. "Don't write me a prescription, I see you trying to put me on antibiotics, I say I don't want any, does it look like I want to run around to a pharmacy for you to give me some placebo bullshit..."
The doors to the elevator close.
no subject
"Yes," he responds dully to the Peacekeeper as he's pulled up and prodded toward the elevator. "I sure did."
The medic is flustered with Jason's agitated state, and tries his best to finish examining the slice across the other man's face. "Modern medicine that's proven to work isn't placebos," he pleads. "You want to prevent infection and heal without a scar, don't you? If you do end up with one, I absolutely would press charges," he adds in an undertone as the elevator doors slide shut.
Where Linden is taken to be processed and admitted overnight to jail, he's compliant, almost eerily so. He's too tired to put up a fight, still kind of unclear on what happened, and he has to ask several times before he seems to have pieced it together. He's tested for drugs, but his system, while objectively unhealthy, has been clean for the past few weeks. It's decided that he'll be locked up and under psychiatric observation overnight, and during that time, District 6 will be short a Mentor and in the process of gathering many new and doubtless unwanted rumors.