Sunshine On My Brain is a Lonely Kind of Pain [Closed]

[whatisay]

WHO| Jason and Linden
WHAT| Jason torments Linden's parents to make a point.
WHEN| After the crowning.
WHERE| D7 Living Room
WARNINGS| Typical Jason being a dick to the Avoxes.

Jason's toxicity doesn't just motivate his grander actions, but trickles down to each interaction, poisoning each syllable he spreads to others, each look he exchanges with strangers. He's petty. He doesn't have the luxury of a sense of scope and so his bad attitude is all-encompassing. So it is here, with the Avoxes he's requested.

He has Linden's parents assigned to District Seven, and from there he treats them with the same angry indifference that he would any other servant. They're the recipients of occasional blows for working too slowly, of commands expected to be followed to the letter at the minute. They become the ghosts in the corner of the room, silent and watching and unnoticed, and Jason likes it that way because when he looks at them he feels funny underneath that petty satisfaction. He feels not remorse (nothing near remorse) but a sort of envy that he shouldn't give name to.

He wonders how much better his life might have been had he had parents so reticent with their opinions as Avoxes are. Had he memories of his parents that weren't of the cloying, smothering 'love' his mother ladles onto him in the name of her martyrdom or the beatings he got at his father's hand in the name of discipline, the drunkenness that follows Jason around like a shadow at the corner of his eye. In an awful way, he envies Linden his disposable parents.

He doesn't particularly like Avoxes - unlike other Capitolites, he never got good at pretending that they didn't exist at all, probably because he thinks of his sister half the time he sees them. He doesn't like them touching him, and feels the compulsion to wash his hand when he picks up things that they've handled. While ordering the new Avoxes around, he keeps waiting for that rush of satisfaction, that temporary reprieve from the roaring of anger all around him, that comes with tormenting others, and it doesn't come.

Eventually he just sits in the District Seven living room, cracking walnuts and tossing the shells over the coffee table to that they have to pick up the pieces from the carpet. His face is crumpled into an expression of vague frustration. One of his hands is bandaged and splinted. His glasses ride high on his nose.

Comments

[whatisay]

Jason glances at his hand like he's forgotten in between twinges of pain that he accidentally slammed it in a door earlier in the week. Some people might call it karma, Jason calls it predictably poor luck.

"Fine by me. I don't want to get my bandage wet when I wash my hand afterwards." There are certain Districters whom, for no measure of fondness so much as practicality, Jason would restrain that snide remark for. Linden's far from that small and select league.

He scrawls out those terms on a notepad, borrowing some language he remembers from his father's old files as a lawyer, here the undersigned, until dissolved by mutual agreement, so on, and then signs it with the sort of artful scrawl that a certain type of Capitol child learns in their calligraphy class, one that makes the last name (the root of all the power and prestige) legible while everything else melts into stylish scribble: Jason Compson, IV. He hands it over to Linden.

"If you need me to read it out loud to you, I could do that." Plenty of Districters arrive in the Capitol illiterate.

[dead_black_eyes]

It's not even the implication that his hands are dirty, is it? Jason sees Districters as inherently dirty, in a way that no amount of scrubbing or Capitol living can remedy. Linden tries very, very hard to make his sneer resemble a anything else.

Just a little longer. Just a few more formalities and this can be over with.

It might look a little frozen or pasted in place, but it technically counts as a smile.

Linden looks over the contract, glancing up and making brief eye contact with Jason before returning his eyes to the paper. "They built a library for me in 6 after I won, you know. Believe it or not, it isn't because I happen to have a fondness for bespectacled women telling me 'shh.'"

[whatisay]

Jason doesn't mind the sneer, revels in it, in fact. He's glad he can drag someone else into suffering, siphon off a little of that restless hatred pent up in him onto another party. It replaces the roiling clouds in him with a sort of placid satisfaction, just for a moment.

"Hey, I never know with your kind." He rolls the pen across the table to Linden. "Go ahead. I have things to do, places to be."

[dead_black_eyes]

If Jason likes secondhand suffering, he'd find no shortage of it spending time with a man who brought it frequently and copiously on himself. Withdrawal is painful, and even after the physical symptoms have ebbed away, the worst kind of mental anguish remains. But it's the kind of pain that is worth it in the long run; Linden clings to that like a prayer, because Morphling had been killing him, and if he goes back, it'll have no trouble finishing the job.

He takes the paper, setting it on the table in front of them and hunching over it to write his name. Though he is a voracious reader, his handwriting looks like a clumsy child's.

"Things to be, places to do..." he says in a half sing-song tone, pushing the paper across the table toward Jason.

"You'll copy it and forward me a copy, along with word that the Avoxes have been moved to 9 no later than three days from now? I'll transfer the funds as soon as I've received confirmation."

[whatisay]

Jason looks over it, smirking slightly at Linden's signature like it's confirmed some suspicion he has, not just about Linden but about Districters in general. Like he's building up a wall of disdain for them and Linden's kindly agreed to add some bricks and caulk.

He folds the contract in half and gestures at the male Avox with a crook of his finger. "You heard the man. Two copies, one to each of us, and I'll let Atlas know to reassign them to Nine immediately."

He doesn't take his eyes from Linden's face as he says all this, as Linden's father takes the contract from Jason's hand (wisely avoiding making skin contact). It's as if he's drinking in the pain Linden's going through, using the taste of it to drown out his own bitter misery.

[dead_black_eyes]

The Avox shuffles over, indifferently taking the paper and following the order. The man is dead-eyed and was likely resensitized recently, given his rigid and perfect obedience. There are flickers of humanity left in Linden's mother, but the father is a perfect beast of burden, as if he has no memory remaining of his life as an engineer, or the young man sitting in this suite who resembles him so strongly.

It's hard not to watch the Avox, knowing what he does about him, and maybe unwisely, he examines the dark-haired man more closely as he takes the contract.

Do you regret dissenting? If you had it all to do over again...

Regret is human, and Linden is not sure whether this Avox could still be considered one, even in very loose terms.

"I'll get everything straightened out on my end, as well. I'm pleased we could reach an arrangement that benefits us both."

[whatisay]

Jason makes a noise of agreement, but doesn't dignify Linden's pleasantry with actual words. He's no longer paying attention to Linden, having opened his notepad and returned to whatever work he was doing before he decided to make life harder for the Lockhearst Avoxes.

"You can show yourself out any time now."

[dead_black_eyes]

"If it's all the same to you, then, I'll stay and finish my water," Linden says; though he's anxious to leave, standing immediately at Jason's noncommittal, indifferent dismissal feels wrong and demeaning. "In my District, we don't waste it. Force of habit."