Jane (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cowcatcher) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thecapitol2015-03-26 04:04 pm
cowcatcher) wrote in thecapitol2015-03-26 04:04 pm
[CLOSED] Don't let me in with no intention to keep me
Who | Jane and Luke, to his surprise.
What | Now that the shoe's been on the other foot, Jane has decided being shut out by someone really sucks! She's here to make that known, among other things.
Where | The District 2 suites.
When | Following Luke's death in the arena.
Warnings/Notes | Nothing yet.
She's pretty sure she's going out of her goddamn mind.
It's been three weeks now, meaning she's been back for as long as she was in the arena for, and she's no less tightly-wound, no less ready to snap. Sleep eludes her, as exhausted as she is, and her appetite's in the shitter. The city is too big and loud and bright and alive, packing her in elbow to elbow with people she wants nothing to do with. All the glitzy distractions the Capitol has to offer only serve to make things worse.
At least she had somewhat anticipated how much this would fuck her up. That familiar mixture of rage and helplessness took hold of her the instant Nick's rifle went off, settling in her gut like a wad of barbed wire while she bled out into the snow. It's not the first time she dies choking on her anger, won't be the last, and all she wants to do is pack up and go, but there's nowhere to run.
Before, the promise of a reunion with everyone had given her something to wrap her agitated mind around. She was supposed to be out of time. She was supposed to be dead. Even someone as sullen as she is can't deny that being brought here means opportunities she never let herself hope for. But they've turned out to be scraps of opportunities at best. Everyone comes back half drowned. She doesn't blame them, but it doesn't help her either.
To make matters worse, she's the first one to bite it this time, the first one to get shoved back in the display case after meeting her end on the killing floor, and she's been teething the walls of their cage like a trapped rat since. She tries drinking, she tries training, she tries tracking down the few faces that didn't belong to enemies. None of it manages to distract her for more than an hour.
Luke is the next one of them to die. She watches it happen, watches Thor carve him up with a knife, and doesn't make it to the bathroom to throw up what little dinner she had been able to stomach.
She doesn't sleep that night, or the next. When she can't settle on somewhere to go, she goes to his District's floor, exactly where survival tells her she shouldn't. But fuck survival – that's three times she's tried it and failed. There's no point anymore, not when they have no control. The walkers are gone, but death has never been more guaranteed. They're all going to die, again and again until the Gamemakers decide not to bring them back.
And really, when the only other idea coming to mind is to steal a knife from the kitchen and see how far she gets, this really makes a lot more sense.
It's pure luck that gets her in his room in the end. An Avox arrives, carrying fresh clothes and his regenerated token, and she doesn't wait for another chance, or bother asking permission. The mute girl seems to know her, and though it's nothing short of surreal to watch recognition dawn on the face of a stranger, she leaves Jane be, and exits alone.
The room looks barely lived in, which makes this feel like slightly less of an intrusion. A paper crane and the photo of his parents are the only personal touches to be found. It's about what she expected to find; neither of them have had a home in a really long time. Jane draws herself up as she paces, pausing to flick on the lamp at his desk. There are other signs of the time he spent holed up in here laid out where he left them, meticulously dusted around. Her eyes skim the open page of a notebook before she can remember to mind her own business. Grumbling a curse, she crosses the room to the shuttered window, her head hung low.
Doubt is creeping in now, soaking the heavy weight already there in her stomach. She should go now, before he gets here. It's the sugar crystals all over again, the gum in Jaime's hair. She can't even begin to explain herself, so what the fuck is she going to say to him?
What | Now that the shoe's been on the other foot, Jane has decided being shut out by someone really sucks! She's here to make that known, among other things.
Where | The District 2 suites.
When | Following Luke's death in the arena.
Warnings/Notes | Nothing yet.
She's pretty sure she's going out of her goddamn mind.
It's been three weeks now, meaning she's been back for as long as she was in the arena for, and she's no less tightly-wound, no less ready to snap. Sleep eludes her, as exhausted as she is, and her appetite's in the shitter. The city is too big and loud and bright and alive, packing her in elbow to elbow with people she wants nothing to do with. All the glitzy distractions the Capitol has to offer only serve to make things worse.
At least she had somewhat anticipated how much this would fuck her up. That familiar mixture of rage and helplessness took hold of her the instant Nick's rifle went off, settling in her gut like a wad of barbed wire while she bled out into the snow. It's not the first time she dies choking on her anger, won't be the last, and all she wants to do is pack up and go, but there's nowhere to run.
Before, the promise of a reunion with everyone had given her something to wrap her agitated mind around. She was supposed to be out of time. She was supposed to be dead. Even someone as sullen as she is can't deny that being brought here means opportunities she never let herself hope for. But they've turned out to be scraps of opportunities at best. Everyone comes back half drowned. She doesn't blame them, but it doesn't help her either.
To make matters worse, she's the first one to bite it this time, the first one to get shoved back in the display case after meeting her end on the killing floor, and she's been teething the walls of their cage like a trapped rat since. She tries drinking, she tries training, she tries tracking down the few faces that didn't belong to enemies. None of it manages to distract her for more than an hour.
Luke is the next one of them to die. She watches it happen, watches Thor carve him up with a knife, and doesn't make it to the bathroom to throw up what little dinner she had been able to stomach.
She doesn't sleep that night, or the next. When she can't settle on somewhere to go, she goes to his District's floor, exactly where survival tells her she shouldn't. But fuck survival – that's three times she's tried it and failed. There's no point anymore, not when they have no control. The walkers are gone, but death has never been more guaranteed. They're all going to die, again and again until the Gamemakers decide not to bring them back.
And really, when the only other idea coming to mind is to steal a knife from the kitchen and see how far she gets, this really makes a lot more sense.
It's pure luck that gets her in his room in the end. An Avox arrives, carrying fresh clothes and his regenerated token, and she doesn't wait for another chance, or bother asking permission. The mute girl seems to know her, and though it's nothing short of surreal to watch recognition dawn on the face of a stranger, she leaves Jane be, and exits alone.
The room looks barely lived in, which makes this feel like slightly less of an intrusion. A paper crane and the photo of his parents are the only personal touches to be found. It's about what she expected to find; neither of them have had a home in a really long time. Jane draws herself up as she paces, pausing to flick on the lamp at his desk. There are other signs of the time he spent holed up in here laid out where he left them, meticulously dusted around. Her eyes skim the open page of a notebook before she can remember to mind her own business. Grumbling a curse, she crosses the room to the shuttered window, her head hung low.
Doubt is creeping in now, soaking the heavy weight already there in her stomach. She should go now, before he gets here. It's the sugar crystals all over again, the gum in Jaime's hair. She can't even begin to explain herself, so what the fuck is she going to say to him?
no subject
It wasn’t supposed to be that way.
It was someone else – anyone else - who had been caught unawares and shot, bleeding away into the snow, drop by creeping drop, darkness steadily eating into their vision. Not Jane. Jane would have seen it coming. Jane would have ducked low behind cover gripping her hunting knife, her jaw set and eyes steely, calculating. More predator than prey.
But then Nick’s lips had shaped themselves around her name – he doesn’t remember hearing it at all – and had made her death so much realer, so much more inescapable. Her name became a weapon, a gut-stab. And he had searched Nick’s eyes long, his own so desperate and pleading, seeking a different answer. Because sometimes the truth just isn’t good enough. But there was nothing for him but the same apology that sucked the air from his lungs -- and he had nodded faintly after a while, the light in his eyes burnt out, gaze unfocusing. The violent shudder of his heartbeat had felt so far away while his mind had gone into a tailspin, his body in autopilot.
Snapping on the light switch brings that moment rushing back when he finds her sitting in his room, waiting, the both of them seeming paler under the wash of light. For a long time he just stares, frozen at the doorway, panting. His shirt's soaked in anger-sweat. Slamming his machete into training dummies could only fix so much.
“…Jane?” He tries, cautiously. As if expecting her to crumble and fade like the illusion of safety in the Capitol.
A beat passes, his wary stance easing.
no subject
She's supposed to be a corpse. A living one, if Clem or Kenny didn't stick around to put her down after finding AJ. And thanks to the Gamemakers, she knows what that looks like all too well. Expression souring, she draws away with a scoff, letting the blinds clatter shut. Everything about this place makes her sick.
That's when she hears the footsteps coming, faint but unmistakable. Fuck. This is right up there with her shittiest ideas and is contending for the title, and she can't even say she's drunk. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
The sound of the door unlatching nearly sends her running for cover, and she can't even bring herself to look as he steps through the doorway. The bedroom lights bore through her eyelids and she knows he's seen her now even if he hasn't said anything, so she unscrews them open to stare back at the mess she just made. Her heart starts to jackhammer against her ribs like a trapped bird. If he can't believe she's here, then that makes two of them.
It takes her too long to find words to say.
"Luke– this was a stupid idea. I just– just wanted to make sure you were still here. Sorry." and she's moving towards him, looking everywhere but at him so she can shuffle past and get the hell out before he realizes how pathetic she really is. "I'll go."
no subject
And he just stands there, his arms still at his sides.
“Jane—“ Luke begins again, patiently, a defeated tiredness leaking into his voice. His lips pinch.
He hadn’t been there. She had suffered and died and he had been off gathering firewood and picking berries and picking off geese, knowing better than to assume that she’d always be there, back in the caves, alive and waiting with Nick and Clem. But he did anyway, because she had to be.
“Look. There’s so much I don’ know ‘bout you; I know that. …But I don’ think you came all this way an’ waited God knows how long jus’ to walk right out the first chance you got.”
He blinks up at her, the sureness, the conviction in his tone not reaching his eyes. They’re too soft, reveal too much. Eyes that belong to the sort of person that has no place in the world nowadays, a person the world would chew up and completely devour – or spit out for others to step on. Or so Carver had said.
“Can’t you jus’-- stay a while? I mean, I ain’t even seen you in weeks." A beat. His throat bobs. "Feels like, like all we're ever doin' when we ain't out there, fightin' for our lives, is jus'... tiptoein' 'round each other.”