whatisay: (Basic - Glasses)
Jason Compson IV ([personal profile] whatisay) wrote in [community profile] 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.
cigne: (Default)

I

[personal profile] cigne 2015-03-11 03:47 am (UTC)(link)
Swann holds out for a bit. She's been busy herself, but when she realizes that not only had Jason not cropped up for coffee or lunch or to just linger around under the pretense of wanting something, but he also hadn't even texted her, she gets worried.

Worry is a second skin for her, so she might as well put it to good use.

She heads down a floor, looking around for anyone, but finds the entranceway empty. She slowly walks inside, peering around, almost like she's timid to be somewhere she has every right to be, looking for a colleague.

Heels clicking gently on the wooden floor, she's about to turn around and leave when she just barely spots Jason's hair contrasting against the sofa, and it starts clicking into place for her, what's happening, why he hasn't contacted her. She sighs and turns off the lights in the room before going to him.

"It's all right, Jason," she murmurs, crouching down and gently rubbing his back.
cigne: (Default)

III, two tags so gross

[personal profile] cigne 2015-03-11 03:58 am (UTC)(link)
She's fidgeting as she waits, made anxious by the fact that he's even a few minutes late when he never is. She doesn't have Marcel in her bag or his carrier, as he's scheduled for grooming today, and she doesn't have any breaks in her itinerary long enough to accommodate the appointment.

When he finally appears (it's been minutes but her worry stretches it longer in her mind), she peers inside the car with a slight frown before getting in and setting her things down at her feet.

"Are you okay? You're late and..." She trails off when she hears the scratches, looking vaguely alarmed as she glances over her shoulder. "What's... what's in there?"
cigne: (Default)

[personal profile] cigne 2015-03-11 04:08 am (UTC)(link)
Her hand is soft on his back, and she feels helpless when he looks at her with so much pain. Her world is based around helping people, and now the person she most wants to help is the one she has nothing to offer. He won't take pain medication, she knows, and his cigarettes must not be working today.

"I know." Her voice is as low and muted as she can make it, barely anything more than a whisper. "I'll stay with you."

For once, her tiny size is a blessing, letting her take a seat on the sofa and put his head on her lap with only the smallest of movements. Her hand runs over his hair, smoothing it out with delicate strokes.
voiceinthephone: ([I'm the Phone Guy surprise])

II

[personal profile] voiceinthephone 2015-03-11 04:10 am (UTC)(link)
Whether or not Avoxes are to be regarded as more than servants, Phillip isn't that sort of man to stand and watch while this happened. He was getting something to eat, something to tide over the incoming regimen of training and watching the Games. Where he came from, people were respected, even if they were dehumanized.

"If you're mad about your District's performance, don't take it out on the nearest person you find," the former guard snapped as he helped the Avox pick themselves up and with the cup. So this was the infamous Jason Compson IV...seeing him in action really did more justice than any of Emily's kind words or watching other Tributes experience that hell in a cheap suit. "It's not their fault you supplied the means to your Tributes' end."

Bitter about his own death? Maybe, but at least now Phil had someone to pin the gun on.
cigne: (Default)

a stranger with candy, get in my van

[personal profile] cigne 2015-03-11 04:31 am (UTC)(link)
There's a little bit of trepidation as she reaches to take off the blanket, but it's quickly replaced with pure awe and pleasure and a noise that may only be audible to dogs, it's so high-pitched.

"Oh! Oh oh oh! Jason, he's precious," she cries, scrambling between the seats and over the center console to sit with the carrier, sticking her fingers through the holes to stroke at the tiger's fur, its muzzle and ears. "Does he have a name? Wait, is it a boy or a girl?"
voiceinthephone: ([That's bullshit])

[personal profile] voiceinthephone 2015-03-11 04:36 am (UTC)(link)
As he tends to the Avox's wound, wiping the blood with a napkin and letting her take a leave, Gray rolled his eyes, "I might be, but now...that happened." The event in question was replayed on the screen. "That must have been quite a doozy to see."

As for the question about being in District 7, he simply answered, "I came to see someone, and check on them. Must I report to you if I am to visit this District?" That telltale sarcasm, nurtured over five years and more, dripped from Phil's lips. He had to be careful not to piss off the Capitolite...too much. But first the gun now this?
cigne: (Default)

[personal profile] cigne 2015-03-11 04:44 am (UTC)(link)
"That's all right."

She only has two left in the Arena herself, which means her work has slowed substantially. She's gotten all the returning Tributes as comfy as she can get them, and besides, it's not really like she can or will leave without him anyway.

Swann lets her hand move rhythmically over his hair, a calm, slow pattern of stroke-lift-stroke, familiar to her from years of being lulled to sleep with it. She doesn't have anything else to offer.
cigne: (Default)

it's just so no one else sees the candy

[personal profile] cigne 2015-03-11 05:11 am (UTC)(link)
"Ohhh, Marcel will just love him, I know it, and I always wanted a cat but this is better, he's so cute, I love him!" She's rambling now, beaming at her new pet and pushing her fingers as far into the carrier as she can get them, her rings clinking against the bars when they collide.

Biting her lip, she thinks for a moment, trying to come up with a good name, then smiles again and leans down to put her face close to the carrier door. "I'll call him Pascal."
voiceinthephone: hollow-art ([You're kidding right?])

[personal profile] voiceinthephone 2015-03-11 05:22 am (UTC)(link)
"I'll take that as a yes, I'll let you know if I ever," Gray allowed Jason to hold him back, but only because it would allow the Avox to get away, "Come up here again."

He didn't know the Compson history and it showed by the way he met the Escort's eyes. "Can you please let go of my hand?" Suddenly Nick looked like a saint compared to this man, and that was saying something. In fact, Emily's concerns were validated by the way he acted: he was being nasty on purpose.
cigne: (Default)

[personal profile] cigne 2015-03-11 05:31 am (UTC)(link)
She doesn't stop stroking his hair, not even when he talks and wants to go. She nods, although that doesn't mean anything since he can't see it.

"Of course," she says, rubbing his back again for a minute. "Don't rush, though. We can stay here until you're ready."
cigne: (Default)

don't worry about it, i'm definitely not going to put you in a cage

[personal profile] cigne 2015-03-11 05:33 am (UTC)(link)
"Okay, okay," she whines lightly, climbing back up front and sitting down. She buckles up and then takes his face in her hands, smiling against his mouth, so pleased that she can barely sit still. "Thank you, Jason."
cigne: (Default)

[personal profile] cigne 2015-03-11 05:50 am (UTC)(link)
"Yeah." Swann scurries away to get his glasses, fiddles with them until she has them on the right setting, then brings them back to him. She touches his hand gently so that he knows to take them, then pets his hair again, still bent over.

"I'm going to go upstairs and get my things, then we'll go, okay?"
cigne: (Default)

no i need it for my jacket

[personal profile] cigne 2015-03-11 06:15 am (UTC)(link)
"He's in the carrier!" she answers, still beaming, and watches over her shoulder as Pascal pushes his face up against the carrier wall and makes funny little squawking noises, incapable of really roaring.

Swann is overjoyed when she gets out of the car and opens the back door to take out the carrier. It takes both of her arms to hoist it up, but she gets it out and opens the door, holding the tiger back so that he doesn't just run out. She's reaching for the leash and harness, and glances over at Jason.

"Will you help hold him? I think I need both hands for this."
cigne: (Default)

[personal profile] cigne 2015-03-11 06:30 am (UTC)(link)
It takes her maybe five minutes to catch the elevator upstairs, gather her things and then return to the sofa. When she gets back to him, she gathers up his papers and his work bag and gives everything to an Avox that she tells to follow them to the car, so that she can support Jason without having to clutch so many things in her hands.

"Are you ready?" she asks gently, reaching for his hands, ready to take him to the elevator.

Page 1 of 18