thecapitol | Flecks of the Heavens' Spat Out Spit [OPEN]

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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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He props himself up on one elbow, which still seems to take herculean effort. The tension and anxiety of the headache, which is still persisting at a dull roar, has sapped the energy out of each of his muscles like a root sucks from earth. He's trembling slightly, arm quaking beneath him.

"Thank you." He takes a few small mouthfuls of water, wincing with each swallow, flinching at the sound the tin makes as he pops it open. "Don't have Eta make me anything tonight."

He holds the mint in his mouth like he's forgotten how it is that people chew, then finally crunches it between his teeth. Then he slumps back into the bed.

"You didn't have to take time off work for me."

She doesn't mention that she wasn't going to have Eta make anything at all, her own stomach churning with so much worry that she knows eating would just be begging for disaster. She sits on the edge of the bed, reaches to run her hand down his arm when he lies back down.

"It's only a few hours. I wasn't going to leave you there to suffer."

He sits up again, briefly, and wraps his arms around her with the sort of clingy, octopus-like encompassing that she uses on him when he's asleep. It like he plans to never let her go. He brings her back down to lying next to him.

"I'm grateful you didn't." She doesn't have to stay here by his side all night - she can do whatever errands she needs, she can do whatever - and yet he wants here there.

There's no resistance, and she reciprocates the way he tangles himself around her, until they're just a line of twisted up limbs, faces buried against each other. Swann never really has to do anything, and so she has no plans to leave him except perhaps for a shower, later on.

"Will you be all right by morning, or should I call work and tell them you need the day off?"

"I can't take the day off tomorrow. I'll survive."

He probably could afford it if he hadn't put a down-payment on the tiger cub he hasn't given Swann yet. He stays twined with her, saying nothing, for a long while as the headache cedes bit by bit. They just breathe, melded together on the bed as if they were conjoined.

He doesn't sleep, instead tracing the jolt of pain above his brow down different rabbitholes in the dark, but at some point he does ask, "did you want to shower? I could shower."

She stays just as silent, eyes closed except for the few times that she blinks against his neck, eyelashes brushing against his skin slowly when she does. She's still until he speaks, content to just think about things, keeping from worrying about him by concentrating on the upcoming events of the next few days, the post-death interviews she has for several Tributes, going over the proofs from Joel's photoshoot (maybe the video she secretly took of the wax will make Jason smile and relax a bit).

When he says something, she raises her head a little, running her hand over his back idly. "I was going to shower when you fell asleep," she tells him softly. "I didn't know if you'd be up to it."

"I think I'll try and sleep straight afterwards, but yeah. I'm up for it." And wants her with him, not in a sexual way but in that demanding, clingy way that he has because he doesn't want to risk her leaving his sight. He runs his hand over her hair, still in a ponytail, and imagines it as foreign terrain to a country he's never set foot on before. Strange and wonderful and new under his palm.

It all seems so difficult, like he's getting out of the bed after years of being there.

"If I go to a doctor-" He takes a deep breath. "-will you come with me?"

He doesn't really intend on going, but maybe the promise that he might will seal her to him like an insect in amber. Maybe it'll make her happy for the night, to feel like she's helping him.

"Okay, we'll shower," she says still rubbing at his back. "Can you stand the overhead light, or should I go light candles instead?" There's no romantic intention in her voice, only concern for his head. She doesn't want him to relapse, go back to an inability to even stand.

She slowly sits up, reaching for his hand so that they aren't really separated, and smiles at him. "Of course I would go with you. Just tell me when."

It's a warm, pleased smile, and she feels all fluttery inside, even if she can't explain why the idea of visiting a doctor makes her that way. It's no different, really, than anything else, but the idea that he would appease her this way makes her more happy than usual.

"Please text your mother before you sleep? I feel like she'll send the Peacekeepers to bang on the door if you don't."

"Candles or the dark. I don't care either way. Just no overhead."

He says to himself, rather than to her, that he isn't making any promises. He has one foot out the escape hatch the instant he's said it, and he'll either pretend he forgot or put it off or just find another way to work around it, but for the moment her happiness and his pointless platitude seems an optimal combination.

"She's probably already filled my phone with messages about how my supper's cold." He sits up, feeling woozy from all the lying down, and clutches her hand.

[OOC: want this thread to be where Swann finds the text messages from Lorraine?]

She kisses his cheek, not letting go of his hand, and nods. "I'll light candles, I don't want you to bump into anything in the dark." Gently standing up, she steadies him, makes sure he won't fall back over from dizziness.

"She's just worried," Swann says with a careful indifference, the way someone might say that they're fine or that s child's mishap is all right. "Can you stand your phone, or do you want me to send the text?"

[only if you type me up more ridiculous Lorraine texts to read]

It's almost like she knows he's terminally clumsy. He follows her touch, obedient and quiet for once.

"I'll see if I can stand it after we wash. Sometimes running water helps." Sometimes it doesn't, and the drops against his skin feel like stinging hail, but he no longer feels his nerves all bruised and withered. The difficulty of doing anything has been cut in half from earlier today. His voice isn't even as muted as it was, since the sound of it doesn't set off the sirens in his head.

[Your wish is my command.]

Well, they go out enough that she's watched him hipcheck plenty of tables and chairs. Besides, Jason has never really exuded an aura of grace, even when he's not stumbling along and tripping on things.

"Okay. If it hurts, let me knoe, I can fill the tub instead." She walks away slowly, gives him the opportunity to stop her if he needs her, but heads to the bathroom to turn on the shower and light candles around the room. She finds his pajamas and places them with the towels, his slippers on the floor for easy access.

"Ready," she announces, going back to him.

In Jason's opinion, table edges and chairs are part of a conspiracy to make his life miserable.

Taking a moment to get his bearings, he starts slipping the rest of his clothing off and comes in when she returns for him, just avoiding tripping on the pants around his ankles and wearing only his underwear. Perhaps if he were more mindful of his surroundings he'd find it annoying that she's still in her gown and he's nearly entirely undressed, but instead it's just animal instinct, moving towards warmth and comfort. The strain of the day seems to have sliced the top off his higher faculties like the heads of flowers under a lawnmower, and his motions, desires, needs have become simple. And she fills them.

Still wincing and face still made older by the crinkled-up expression, he reaches over and touches her cheek, runs fingers that have only just stopped trembling over her smooth skin. She seems made of light and cream, a warm, bobbing beacon he can follow in the dark. He pulls her close again, feeling the steam of the shower make their skin wet against each other with condensation, and after that brief embrace slips off his boxers and steps into the shower.

"You coming?"

The bathroom is dim, with only a low, flickering glow provided by candles around the room, on the countertops and decorative tables and shelves that it takes to fill an unnecessarily large space for such a simple room. She smiles at him, serene and happy, and kisses his fingertips when he touches her face. Her fingers trace his spine and she leaves contact between them until he's safely in the shower.

"Be right there." She sheds her robe and her panties and takes her hair down from the ponytail, then follows him into the water spray.

Swann's shower is a marvel of indulgence. Multiple heads with a bevy of adjustable configurations spit water out, and soaps of a thousand different scents are available at the touch of a button. Jason imagines himself climbing into an escape pod that's taking him far, far away from a doomed planet, him and Swann, being rinsed down with the hot water and leaving the world behind.

He lets her closer to the main showerhead so that she's getting enough water, and runs his hand over the button for soap without looking or trying to read in the dim light for what the scents are. He gets a handful of something foamy and floral and rubs it into Swann's shoulder, using the feeling of her body as the one focal point of this unorthodox sensory experience.

"This is good." He realizes he's paid her and her home more compliments in the last year than he has to the entire rest of the world in a decade. "I'd probably still be stuck at the Tribute Center without you."

And her, too, honestly - she can't leave without his car.

Well, she always could have called a car, but that never really occurred to her, not when Jason needed help and she was there to provide it.

"I told you, I wasn't going to leave you there," she murmurs, glancing over her shoulder at him, then grabs a handful of shampoo and lathers it in her hair before turning around to face him, letting the water rinse her hair clean. The soapy water streams down her back, and she gets more shampoo to reach up and massage it into his hair, too. "You don't have to do these things alone now. I'm here."

Even though the water has already rinsed all the lather from her hair, he still runs his hands through it, more for the texture and feel of it than anything else. He tilts his head forward so she can lather his, letting water drip from his eyelashes.

He wonders how many more of these she'll bear witness to.

"My mother never understands that she needs to lower her voice when I have them. I swear she brings the volume up."

Her hair gets darker in the water, goes from platinum to more of a gold. She smiles and massages his scalp, fingers digging in but gently, hoping to allievate some of the pressure that remains. She presses close to him just out of habit.

"I'm sure she thinks she's helping. Somehow. I think she needs a friend so that she can stop focusing on you. Or maybe a pet. I can see her with a little songbird." Swann snorts a bit, then adds, "Or a parrot. You can teach it to speak and then she'll feel like you're always right there with her."

He winces a few times, but for the most part the gentle massage seems to help. He stays close to her, slowly lowering his arms until he's holding her around the waist as if they were slow-dancing.

"Great, that's what I need, an animal that can nag at me too. I'm sure she'd teach it to tell me I ought to get married and then turn around and say no one's good enough for me, too."

He knows Swann has a point, but either cynicism or exhaustion or just plain stubbornness leaves him unable to believe that his relationship with his mother could actually improve without her outright dying. Just thinking about putting effort in makes him feel tired. It makes him want to shut the world down, put it on pause. The future always seems like a grey smear, a fog he can't see into.

"Do you still see your father much?"

She laughs softly, rises on her toes to press her lips to his for a second. "Have you ever tried offering to marry her, just to shut her up? Tell her she's the only woman good enough for you and that you want to have a great big wedding to show her off." Swann scratches his scalp, tickles with the image of it. "Or is the worry that she'd jump at the chance?"

Taking a handheld sprayer from the wall, she rinses out his hair on the lightest setting, nodding. "Every few weeks, we have lunch or dinner. With the Games always airing now, and with my job, we can't spend as much time together. Sometimes I go over there and stay though, if I'm really sick. He sends a car and Eta comes with me."

Edited 2015-03-14 15:30 (UTC)

"I wouldn't put it past her." He scowls a bit, the dim light making a ghoul's mask of the lines of his face, not humorous for the moment.

"When you're really sick...your stomach?" He lowers his hand to her stomach, feels the smooth skin and the way water is pooling in her belly button. The idea of having a relationship with his family that's on an as-needed basis is enviable. The idea of running to them for sanctuary and comfort seems absurd.

She can only laugh again and run her thumb over those lines, trying to impress upon him how ridiculous the idea is. For the record, she still doesn't think the parrot is a terrible idea.

"Uh-huh." She nods and touches his arm, putting away the handheld sprayer for the moment. "Usually only when it lasts more than a day or two, when it gets so bad that I can't eat at all for days. It used to happen a lot more, now it's only once in a while."

"I wish it didn't happen at all." The idea of her being in such a state scares him, because he wouldn't know what to do. He's not capable of the gentleness she shows him, he knows it, and he imagines that the woman he's bedding with having such curse is some kind of universal injury against him, personally. He draws her closer and kisses the crown of her head again. Then he finds conditioner and splots some in his hand, working it into her long tresses.

"Let me know if it does."

"I will."

She looks at him for a moment, like she's reading him, thinking about how she's not sure if he's ever said anything that directly caring before. He's not like other paramours (is he her boyfriend? She's not even entirely sure of that), who would call her pet names and tell her she's pretty and sweet and wonderful, especially when they were in apologetics over hitting her or mistreating her or whatever. Jason never gives her compliments like that, and it doesn't particularly bother her, just marks him as different in her mind, and makes what he says all the more meaningful.

She tilts her head back a little, to better let the water flow through it, holding his biceps where all his strength seems to be anyway. "It's not as bad as it sounds, you know. I throw up, but mostly I just sleep through it."

Swann doesn't want him to worry, be plagued the way she is.

He doesn't know why he told her to tell him. It's not like he's going to be able to do anything, to dredge up compassion out of the dry well of positivity in him. Maybe it'll be so he can fabricate an excuse to avoid her, and then in the absence of failure concoct a hypothetical Jason who could care for her, who would not be so damn helpless in the face of the unchangeable.

Regardless, he understands that he's made a promise.

He works the conditioner through her hair and the soap over her body, rubbing it into her creases and nooks with the sort of chasteness that comes not from disinterest but from exhaustion. He lets her wash his hair and rinse his body, and by the time they're out of the shower and drying he feels fit to pass out. The light from the candles still make him wince and so, as he gets dressed and crawls into the bed, he knows he can't look at his phone.

"I'm going to need you to text my mother. Make something up. If she knows I've had a headache she'll nag me for a month."

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