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.

Threaded | Flat

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.

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?"

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.

That he was a 'person non gratis' in District 7, Maxwell was well aware, but that didn't stop him from visiting the suite once a day, every day, since he'd awakened a floor above. He did, however, go out of his way to try and accommodate both Dorian's wishes and Jason's attitude.

The time of his visits varied and he never lingered long.

He didn't even fight how the candle kept disappearing, despite how it grated between his teeth. He simply came prepared, a spare at the ready to replace it. Crouching near the door jam, he pushed the glass against the wall - as out of the way as he could make it - and carefully struck a small match to light it.

They'd already taken everything else, he'd be damned if they'd take their faith as well.

Edited 2015-03-11 15:40 (UTC)

"Oh my god."

Stephen is standing in the doorway, staring at the scene he'd just accidentally witnessed. He knows he's just walked in on something he wasn't meant to see, but the feeling of awkwardness is overpowered by a strong sense of disgust. He can't walk away and pretend he didn't see it.

"Jason, what the fuck."

Linden's heard about getting clean from other addicts, how suddenly the air feels fresher and you have more energy and your body learns how to get by as nature intended. It's supposed to be invigorating; he suspects they were all full of complete shit. He's been abstaining for a few weeks now and he has yet to feel any better. If anything, he's more irritable, sicker and angrier than he's ever been, and his primary method for dealing with such triggers is off-limits to him. It's a recipe for disaster for anyone he happens to run across in this state, even if they're familiar with all of his quirks and neuroses and know exactly how to tiptoe around them.

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."

Cyrus is in the irritating place of needing to find someone who's given him only a vague idea of where in the Tower they are. He doesn't make a habit of coming too near the District Suites or the various public spaces between them, unless he's looking for Stephen-- but, well. There are some things you can't just walk past, and a display like that is one of them.

He gives Jason a few feet of distance as he approaches, his expression the kind of neutral that implies disapproval he's not bothering to make overt. See if that outburst is over. He stops just short of the spreading puddle of coffee, keeping it off his shoes.

The Avox hardly knows what to do with itself. It's still on the floor with its back to the couch, staring at a smear of blood on its hand with dumb terror. "Get up," Cyrus tells it, without turning to look; he's looking at Jason, with an annoyed set to his mouth.

"You should consider punching a pillow next time," he says. "Still Tower property, but less expensive to replace."

If it were anyone else, he might not have stopped, might not have said anything; there's nothing wrong with striking Avoxes. It's not an atrocity so much as a distinct show of a lack of class - and Cyrus knows Jason's better-bred than that.

Emily's made sure to keep their Tributes out of the suite, ushering them out quietly when they left their rooms and chasing them away when they wandered back, instructing them that if they had enough time to come and hang around up here then they had the time to go downstairs and put in some training - just because they were out of this Arena, it only meant that they had more time to prepare for the next one. She feels a little draconian, and worries that she'll damage the rapport she's building up with some of them, but if it's a choice between that and having them disturb Jason and have them all face his ire, herself included, she'd gladly take the former.

She shuts herself in the Mentor's suite and makes phone calls, going through the list of business cards to get sponsors for Nick, feeling that she's at the point where she'd accept almost any condition to get aid for the last remaining District Seven Tribute. She periodically pokes her head out the door to check on Jason, and after a while she sends an Avox for a cold glass of water and some analgesia.

"Here, take these. You feeling any better?"

"You poor child."

That wasn't even remotely friendly but then again, Leo didn't particularly care for Capitolites who thought the ground they walked on was sacred. It was hilarious to see the proud, proud man so broken and...was that whimpering? Oh that's committed to memory.

Of course Leonidas knew of the Compson family, who didn't in District 2? Such a rising star of a family, what prominence, and now they're in shambles with a hypochondriac matriarch and a mess of children that would guarantee the rest of Panem with lurid stories for generations to come. It was commonplace that some of the workers home liked to talk about what escapades they'd come up to.

But one can't say the Cora heir was a cruel man as he offered Compson a mug of tea and some painkillers.

He was preparing to go out - for a drink, for air, for anything - and was stepping out of his room and pulling on a jacket when he spotted Jason on the couch.

Now, generally speaking, he avoided Jason like the plague when he could manage it, but something about the way his brow was furrowed in pain called to Dorian with a sweet, tempting song.

"Ah, Jason, just the man I wanted to see," he said, much louder than was necessary, as he came over. Well. Stomped over might be more appropriate.

The only person that Nill actually knows on this floor is Beth - she'd been there a few times, and helped Beth to get a piano into the District 7 suite when she bought it, but otherwise Nill really has no reason to be in the 7 suites. She recognizes Jason, though she has no real opinion of him; it might be debatable if he would recognize her from anywhere outside the Arena as well.

Because of all that she's not expecting to see much of anything in the norm when she gets off the elevator. Needless to say, she never expected to go to any floor and see someone hit ones of the Avoxes. She makes her way over good and fast, immediately putting her herself between Jason and the Avox. Behind her her wings are spread out to their full length, and she holds up her hands, palms out, but it's an entirely different demeanor than the one she usually has when in the process of breaking up arguments. Typically it's concerned and careful - right now it's much closer to anger. The gesture is not meant to placate him, it is meant to tell him to cut it out right the hell now.

This whole experience has been disorienting for Vivi ever since he opened his eyes to strangers ushering him around as they told him that he was to fight others to the death. He had learned from his previous experience in Dali to speak up this time, but before he knew it, he suddenly found himself in some unfamiliar terrain. The first night was the hardest. It was that moment as the sun went down that he realized he couldn't cast any spells. He made do with what he learned from Quan and managed to keep himself quiet and hidden for the most part, until the flames caught up with him and he couldn't run fast enough.

His time in the arena may have only been just over a week, but he hadn't expected to wake up at all, let alone to also learn that he has to participate in this game over and over again. Isn't death supposed to be permanent?

Vivi was told that he had a room assigned to him in the suites, so he figures he could have some time alone to think there. The elevator isn't too foreign, but it's so sleek and shiny compared to the moving platforms he has seen back home. Right as the doors open, he jumps at what sounds like a mug shattering, following the noise to its source. He rounds the corner of the suite to catch the sight of a man striking another - a servant it looks like, from what he has seen while wandering about.

"W-What are you doing?!"

It's none of his business and he knows it, but the sight is enough for him to conclude that it's straight up wrong. Standing barely at 3'9, he does not remotely appear intimidating but the bright glow of his eyes speaks more loudly than his actual voice.

Edited (whoops forgot the first chunk. XD) 2015-03-19 12:56 (UTC)

It was by chance that he'd even spotted him. As they'd exited Beth's suite, Rick had recognized his profile out of the corner of his eye, having seen it more than once on the magazine covers; the rumour mill wasn't something he actively kept tabs on, but he wasn't entirely oblivious to the Capitol's goings on. The majority of it was taken with a grain of salt, but the minute his name had been tied to Beth's, they'd had his attention.

Realistically, this wasn't one of his better calls; under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have pursued it. The presence of the peacekeepers left them significantly declawed and, truth be told, Rick couldn't say that Jason was an entirely negative force in Beth's life. He'd been sending her a steady flow of supplies throughout the arena and loathe as he was to admit it, the sponsor support would only benefit her in the long run. The minute they took up arms against him, that support could very well vanish and land the pair of them behind bars... or worse.

Unfortunately for all of them, Rick wasn't of the soundest judgement in that moment. The wounds left by the previous arena hadn't healed over, having cut far deeper than he'd cared to admit. Avoidance of the issues would only carry him so far, and try as he might to clamp down and carry on, it was an inherently flawed process. The lingering feelings of ineffectuality gnawed at the back of his mind, the memory of the knife and Daryl's laboured breathing still to fresh. He hadn't been able to watch the replays of what Beth had been forced to do, nor could he completely dispel the fragmented images left from his brief period as a walker. Even on familiar terrain, it had all fallen apart; Rick hadn't managed to protect either of them.

There hadn't been a conversation - Rick didn't want to have one. Instead, it had been boiled down to a shared glance, followed by a slight nod in Jason's direction as he altered his course. It left little room for argument, not that he'd expected one.

He was hardly dressed for first impressions. Since his return, he hadn't bothered trying to conform, leaving his beard untamed and his hair slicked back out of utility rather than style. He was long past caring about his appearance, and he didn't expect Jason to be all that surprised - After all, there was little doubt that he didn't already know who they were. The notes tacked onto Beth's supplies had left little room for that.

Rick was sure to keep the table positioned strategically between them as he approached, standing just across from him; it was a solid barrier, there more for the other man's safety than his own. The tension he felt was absent from his frame, his stance loose and his expression neutral as he sized him up; it was in moments like this that he most keenly felt the absence of his sidearm, fingers closing on air in the space it should have occupied.

"It's Jason, right?"

Beth doesn't stick to her schedule. Or at least, she did a pretty good job of it for a while, but she has Charlie now and he's much more interesting than any training session or ad campaign. It's just a little unnerving to see her face on billboards - touched up to feel even more artificial, of course. When she sees the final images, she doesn't even recognize herself. They've edited out every single little flaw, including the now-permanent scars on her face.

It's creepy. She doesn't go out into the city unless she really has to, which is exactly why she's currently playing hooky and entertaining herself by walking Charlie around the district 7 suite instead. Being unable to stop him as he leaps up to the couch where a prone escort is currently lying. Licking his face with happy noises before Beth manages to pull him away.

"Sorry about that, I guess he was sorta lonely while we were all gone. Are you...alright?" was he asleep? Jason doesn't exactly seem like the type to fall asleep in the middle of a suite of tributes who sort of hate him.

Threaded | Flat