thecapitol | I will never die

Entry tags:

I will never die

Who| Peggy and D10 tributes; Peggy and Open
What| Peggy is evaluating her new tributes, and in between evaluations she bugs people to spar with her.
Where| Training Center
When| Soon after Peggy arrives
Warnings/Notes| Maybe from violence from sparring?

Closed to D10ers

"I want to evaluate each skill you may need in the arena." Peggy Carter is large and in charge, perfectly composed and stepping like an army woman with a clipboard at her side. Today, her scarf is black, and her clothes are suited for training. "I want you to sit at each station--not just the combat stations, but all of them--and complete whatever task it is set up to allow you to practice. I will time how fast it takes you to complete and take note of any particular problem areas, and we can work together from there to set up a training schedule that works for you. Do you understand?"

Open to All

She's put away her clipboard, but not the training clothes or the black scarf. She's doing a circuit around the training center herself, working at the survival stations, evaluating what she can learn and what she already knows, but most of all, she spends her time with the combat training equipment. Exercise, weights, axes, arrows--and even, though she spends some time staring at them with an inscrutable look in her eye, knives and swords. Work. Work. She goes through it with the methodical air of a woman who's been doing this for a very long time, even if she hasn't been in the arena for years.

But obsessive exercising can't take the edge of for her anymore. She's back in the tribute center, back where her life had been consistently destroyed year after year after year, back where she and Bucky and all of the tributes she had mentored before had scrambled to survive. She couldn't sleep here, and she had to force herself to eat. Not even destroying herself with exercise will remove the horror now fresh on her mind.

Eventually, she abandons the weights and weapons, instead approaching the nearest person. "Do you feel up for a spar?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Between Jason talking to Peggy on the network, phone calls have been taken, a focus group had to be organized, some budgetary discretion had to be signed off to the District Seven Stylist, and, of course, Cyrus' big news broke. Jason sent a text to Peggy to say he was running late, although not a specific time, and when he finally makes his way up to District Ten she must have given up on tea with him and gone to exercise, because she only just back to the District Suite sweaty and red-faced with exertion.

"I'll bet you're curious what that was about," Jason says, taking a seat on the leather couch - everything in District Ten cattle-themed, rustic, cowhide and carved wood - and putting his feet up on the table with that same sort of casual-cum-disrespectful attitude he's had since well before his teenage years, that nearly got him fired from his Escortship at least five times and yet never quite was enough to get him ousted. It's strangely familiar, like years haven't passed between the last time he and Peggy worked together. He's older now, and that harried look to his face like he's always chasing something has stamped itself deeper in his features over the years, but he greets her like they're about to discuss tactics for a mutual Tribute, like he's about to make some crude joke about teens to the slaughterhouse and she's about to glare at him and they're about to work together to secure another packet of food for some starving child from her homeland.

"You got coffee? I want something harder than tea, and I don't get near enough sleep with five Tributes to wrangle."

It's like they're back in time for a moment. Back to the comfort but horror of Peggy's days as a mentor, when it was day in and day out of struggling to save children with varying chances of survival. She never knew which was worse: having a twelve-year-old child and knowing off the bat that nothing they can do will save their life, or having a seventeen-year-old they could work to save and then have all their efforts be for naught all over again. It was harder on her than it was on Jason. She had grown up with many of the tributes they had shared.

"Yes, it seems rather cruel to get us used to two tributes and then heave several more on us." She stands to go get the coffee, still hot from when some of her tributes were drinking it. She hands him a mug before sitting down on one of the couches, crossing one leg over the other and feigning somewhat more respect than Jason ever bothered to. "So, what's all this business about the... changing office culture?"

Maybe it's just the shift in age group and survival rate of tributes, but she had never heard of there being fraternization problems before she left mentoring.

"And I don't know about you, but I haven't seen a single raise for the increased work." He actually does know about Peggy, knows that the Mentors still receive the same compensation they always have, just like the Escorts; investigating other people's financials is just something Jason does as a matter of habit, like checking the weather before he chooses a coat for work.

"Obliged." He takes the mug and sets it on his knee, resting his head on one hand. "And the office culture. Well. I don't know if Cyrus would have been quite so diplomatic if the new rules didn't implicate his own little brother."

There's disgust on his face that goes deeper than disdain for a lack of professionalism - obviously, that's never mattered much to Jason. It's a bit of envy and genuine repulsion and frustration, like he's watching Stephen get away with something.

"Sometimes I forget we're even paid." Admittedly, that's partially because she already has more money than she really knows what to do with. Having grown up in poverty, she'd never developed expensive tastes. She spends just enough to keep up appearances in Capitol society with pretty clothes and makeup.

"Stephen Reagan is sleeping with tributes?"

Oooh, the scandal. Not that it's really surprising, considering Stephen's reputation. He picks up on Jason's disgust, but to be fair, Jason is disdainful of many people. Just perhaps not this much usually. "And Cyrus hasn't tried to have him pulled from his post?" She's sure the Reagan brothers love each other, but Cyrus Reagan, being a very important man, has to think of image and family prestige. The younger Reagan sleeping with tributes isn't good for either of those things.

"You and me both." If Jason weren't skimming off the top, then he probably wouldn't be able to keep his family afloat, at least not by Capitol standards. Survival here means something more than bare essentials; it means shoveling your paycheck into keeping up appearances, less you drown under the social morass, and Jason's family is an anchor around his ankle.

"He probably has in private, but he's not about to publicly discipline Stephen, for obvious reasons. Stephen already took two years off for 'emotional rehabilitation' from the job, or whatever bullshit excuse they're coming up with now."

He takes a sip of coffee, wincing as it's hot enough to burn his tongue and thinking himself not stupid for having done so, but the coffeemaker somehow treacherous. He seems completely oblivious to the hypocrisy of holding that against Stephen when he took six years off.

"And he's not the only one. It's disgusting in here, Carter. You'd think it was a brothel, only it doesn't smell as nice as one. I can name at least two other Staffers who've been involved with Tributes in the last year, not to mention Mentors." He waves a hand. "No offense."

Well, Peggy has an advantage there. She has no family. Ha ha... ha...

She arches an eyebrow, tempted to point out that Jason himself had been gone for triple the time, but if she did, he might withhold the gossip as punishment. Instead, she will just look at him in the way she always does when she thinks he's being hypocritical, petty, or childish (which means she gives him the look a lot) and take a slow sip of her tea.

"No offense taken." She puts her teacup back on the saucer in her lap, back to listening intently. Personally, she has never felt the urge to sleep with her coworkers, and she doesn't care that many of them find the idea of sex with a District woman distasteful. "You can't just say 'at least two other staffers' and leave me at that."

It's good Peggy doesn't mention it, because Jason would likely start on the self-pity train about how he was raising an ungrateful teenager and caring for his sick mother and handicapped brother and blah, blah, blah, the same sob story that has worn out its welcome on everyone but him. It's the life he only appreciates because it justifies his martyrdom, and for no other reason. He hates his life otherwise.

"I have to keep at least one up my sleeve for blackmail reasons," he says, flashing a Capitol-white grin. Whether he's kidding or not is left up to interpretation. He takes another sip of coffee. "But Jolie, the District Eight Stylist, had a fling with Bro Strider and Stephen both. Threesome. How's that for scandal?"

Peggy knows well enough how to avoid his pity parties. Mostly. It's hard to find another person who is so miserable and yet relishes his misery.

She doubts he's kidding. She doesn't think blackmail is beneath Jason. But that doesn't matter at the moment; it's gossip time. "A threesome? Stephen's lucky his brother didn't arrange to have him fired on the spot." Frankly, she likes Stephen. He's a nice enough man and he's always given her respect, which can't be said for too many Capitolites. But of all people to have a threesome with a coworker and a tribute, it would probably be Stephen. "And nothing happened to the stylist for that?"

"We could only hope." Jason's not feeling terribly fond of the District Six Staff these days. He gestures to his face, where a healing cut is faintly visible, stitches only recently removed. "I wouldn't complain if they replaced the whole staff for that District, honestly."

Jason, having grown up with Stephen, has a little less patience for him. There's old bad blood there, crusted and stained and probably mysterious to Stephen. "No, Jolie's still stationed where she was. I suppose that wanted it on the books before they started cracking down on people for this."

He pulls out his cigarette and, turning it on, gestures with it to Peggy. "You might want to be careful. It's not just Sponsors who you have to watch out for anymore, it's the animals working in the dressing rooms with you."

She arches an eyebrow. She hasn't seen Jason visibly scarred since... she's not sure she ever has. The worst she sees are his migraines, which are admittedly pretty bad. "I'm assuming my tribute isn't responsible for that one." Mostly because she suspects Jason would be doing a fair bit more than just bitching about Éowyn if she actually cut him.

"Tell me the stylists haven't taken to attacking people. I think I have my hands full with tributes." Also, the thought of a drag queen coming at her with a knife is very unsettling. She would rather the stylists keep their glittery hands to themselves and do what they're good at, which is make tributes look ridiculous and get sponsorships that way.

"District Six Mentor. The drug addict. Linden." He twists his lip upwards into a sneer Peggy's probably seen a lot of in her time. "Only got a night in jail for it. I'd say I can't believe it, but things have all gone to hell since Hsiang died."

It's the migraines, oddly enough, that have been the impetus behind placing Peggy in a smaller category in Jason's subconscious than the one generally reserved for Districters - at times she's repaid the aid he gave her in the Arena by calling him a cab and finding him a dark place to lie down while he was too sick and pain-wracked to move or see. Though he'd never admit it, he likes Peggy well enough, even so far as respects her in that mild, uncommitted way he holds for a very few people.

"No, no, I mean that the Stylists are rakes, not violent. You have Jolie chasing Mentors and Tributes both and then Oceana's trying to get in everyone's pants no matter what station they hold. Careful, your Escort's a drag queen, it might come with that whole lifestyle." That's the way Jason sees things, for the most part - sweeping generalizations, the worst attributes of any group papering over the lot of them.

"Linden did that?" She's genuinely surprised. It's hard to imagine Linden slashing the face of an escort. "I hate to think what you did to provoke him." Because of course that's her immediate assumption. She's quite fond of Linden and knows that he has his troubles, but he's not one to be violent unprovoked. Jason, on the other hand, has a tendency to drive even the sweetest people to murder.

"I like to avoid sleeping with coworkers when I can. I think I'm safe from the allure of drag queens for now." It's not like any of them can tell her something she doesn't already know, anyway. They're effectively useless to her. However, it's an interesting tidbit that the stylists have gone off the rails and started going after tributes--maybe Cyrus was right to ban fraternization, since that seems like a situation ripe for coercion and extortion. "Have the District 10 tributes been involved with any of this?"

"I was helping him up off the ground. It's not my fault that whatever traumatized part of his brain decided to interpret that as a threat decided to respond by hitting me in the face with a piece of glass. You know how Mentors are." He beckons the Avox to bring him a glass of water. He'd say present company exempted, except it really isn't.

"Not that I know of. I mean, I'm not involved. I only know what people are too careless or too stupid not to cover up." Because that's how the world is, Jason knows. No one is to be trusted because they all are just a sheen over a rotten core. People look down on his family but he knows every family has their tragedies and secrets, that the Compsons were just the unlucky enough pustule to be lanced to ease the swelling of an infected patch of flesh just a little.

"Who is it in yours- Sigma Klim, Tom Cassidy, Arya Stark, Clara Murphy, Jack Spicer- no, you're actually lucky, your Tributes like to cozy up to the Capitol in legal ways. Two petitioning out and one a Mentor. Not bad."

Peggy has a distinct feeling that that's not the whole story, but she's not going to push it. She can ask Linden what horrible thing Jason has been doing later. (Not that, she supposes, Linden going into a violent flashback is too unrealistic. She does the same thing sometimes.)

"Oh, thank goodness. It's hard enough to mentor people when they're not trying to get their tongues cut out at every turn." She starts counting off on her fingers. "Klim and Cassidy are the petitioners, correct? And Clara seems pleasant enough. I suppose we've had some luck in this whole venture. I'm not sure how well I could mentor seven or eight unruly tributes alone." Mentoring one or two subservient ones is hard enough. At least her new tributes are just complaining rather than overtly treasonous, and there's another person who can mentor with her.

"Try Escorting them," Jason snorts. "At least they aren't assuming you're against them from the very start. They cut you some slack, give you the benefit of the doubt."

Which, he supposes, isn't something that's changed from Peggy's day. He remembers her as a teenager, treating him with the suspicion a wild animal would to someone freeing it from a trap, and him with an even worse temper than he has now. They came to blows more than once. She once made him bleed with a blow from her fingernails; he got a reprimand after a Stylist reported having to hide bruises from where he grabbed her upper arm, not because it was damage to the Tribute but because it made more work for the Stylist to add sleeves to a dress. Phillips intervened more than a few times.

Phillips has been gone a long time now, but so has the violent tension between him and Peggy. They've settled into something near pleasant. Jason drags from his cigarette, exhaling a smoke ring. "I'm doing alright in Seven, though. Emily's alright enough. A little too softhearted for other Districts' Tributes, but maybe I'll let her call home a few times so she can remember what she's training them for."

"Not the ones who don't even know what a mentor is. I think one of my tributes mistook me for some kind of TV producer for the district. They think that I'm just there to tell them how to kill things in the most entertaining way."

At the very least, the tributes from the classic games generally treated their mentors far better. Mentors were established members of the district's community, and every little district child knew the function of the mentor within the Hunger Games. Even if the tributes resented their Reaping, they paid attention to what the mentor said. Peggy had been no exception--even though she had taken out her anger on her obnoxious and cruel escort, she had hung onto every word her mentor said, and he was the only one who could break up their fights.

Now he doesn't need to be around. Their fights, when they happen, are confined to passive aggressive jabs or sometimes verbal confrontations, but they happen rarely as they've gotten comfortable with one another.

"A call home should fix it up. I imagine it can be hard to remember the importance of our work when we're not faced with a person who could die from our negligence every day." Instead, they're faced with dozens of grown adults, freely mingling between districts they were arbitrarily sorted into, some of them not even caring about winning the games in the first place. She's already been talked to by a ton of tributes from outside of her district for one reason or another, something that never happened before. "And it must be hard with how friendly some of the other districts' tributes try to be."

Peggy has a heart of stone, or so she tells herself, so she feels she can resist the urge to get invested in other districts' tributes, regardless of their friendliness. (She might not be able to do it for the Bucky she met or the Steve if she meets him.)

Jason laughs, now. "Apparently where some of mine are from, 'escort' is a polite term for a whore. I've had at least three of them assume that I was their intimate companion when they first met me. I'm not sure if I should take it as an insult that they were relieved that I wasn't."

It's always a gamble to joke about prostitution with Peggy, but Jason's one of the ones who usually knows where her limits are, and this is far from them. He slings one ankle over his knee with that aqueous sprawl he has and drinks some more of the coffee.

"I'm thinking of making some sort of network post to them all about why they shouldn't be involved in inter-District alliances. I've tried talking to them individually and I think they're willfully misunderstanding me, like a child sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming 'not listening!' until I shut up." He shakes his head. "I says maybe if they don't want to take a survival tip they should see it blow up in their face in the Arena, but you know me. I'm too generous to keep good advice to myself."

This is still within Peggy's limits. She gives a laugh of her own, covering her mouth instinctively as she often does when a laugh is real. "Oh no, that would make the Hunger Games very different." Personal prostitutes for each tribute to make sure they don't die virgins, she supposes? The thought of grumpy Jason giving his escort spiel in that context makes her start giggling. Giggling. (She would insist it's perfectly adult chuckling, though.) "Not sure how useful the Escorts would be like that, but I guess the tributes would enjoy dealing with them more."

Her giggles recede, now becoming actual chuckles instead. "So generous, Jason. I don't blame them for not really seeing the difference between their districts, since they've been sorted arbitrarily and have been given no reason to care about the people they've been assigned to any more than the people others have been assigned to. How many of these tributes know that their districts are rewarded for their victories, anyway? One of mine didn't know that was the case."

"To be honest, there are some Sponsors who'd glut up the District budget more if I'd sleep with them. They don't understand that just because I butter them up to get into their wallets doesn't mean I like them."

When she giggles, he can't help but grin a bit back, as if their happiness is both intensely elusive and contagious, something they must catch together like a woodland creature between hounds.

"Whoever's grabbing them from whatever swamp they crawled out of and is bringing them here isn't giving them even the faintest explanation. Sometimes I'll just assume they know something and it isn't until halfway through the conversation that I realize we're talking past each other. Pamphlets, I say. And history lessons." He nods his head tightly and then rests it backwards, leaning the back of it against the rest of the couch. He takes a long suck of his cigarette and exhales through his nose, coming as close to relaxing as he has all day.

"That seems to be a thing with Sponsors. It's like they don't understand that we don't sit around with them all day spinning poetic about our districts because we enjoy their company."

She leans back and crosses her ankles, looking at the ceiling as she thinks. "In that case, pamphlets wouldn't be so bad. Maybe I should put together a binder and leave it in the District for new arrivals to look at."

"Ugh." Jason doesn't push that part of the conversation further, knowing that there's a time and place that Peggy's receptive to bitching about the way Sponsors smell and their tendency to throw their weight around as if their wealth could buy away their improprieties.

"You might have to put a gun to their head to get them to actually read it. They have no initiative on their own. It's not even like they believe everything they're told, they just don't bother to inform their disbelief." He waves the cigarette again. "You tell them about the government here, they'll say all the reasons they think they could do it better but don't even crack a book."

He checks his watch. "But I should be getting back downstairs. Escorts actually have to work these days. Imagine that."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I will never die

D10 Suite

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject