thecapitol | you're caught in my head like a thorn on a vine [closed]

Entry tags:

you're caught in my head like a thorn on a vine [closed]

Who| The Signless, Roland and (later) the Psiioniic
What| Signless has a small meltdown in the wake of Sigma's broadcast, one he can't weather alone
Where| D4/Roland's room
When| Right after Sigma's broadcast
Warnings/Notes| Mentions of violence/brainwashing/slavery, possibly other terrible things.

Three days. Three days of only knowing the Initiate's fate as a vague uncertainty, of assuming the worst and hoping for the best. Signless had known going in there was a high chance that if anyone would take the hardest fall for this it would be his moirail. He'd thought he was prepared for that, but what he'd been preparing for was an execution. This is worse. This is worse in a way that is deeply personal, and it's with mounting rage and disbelief that he watches it unfold on the communicator. He can't even finish watching the broadcast; once Sigma becomes the focus again he physically takes off his communicator, shoves it in a drawer, and walks across the room to put as much distance between him and it as he can. He can still hear it muffled from the drawer and presumably from the television in the District 12 commons but none of the words manage to register.

A long time ago the Signless described his anger as liquid filling a cup. With each new atrocity he witnessed both on Alternia and later in Panem a little more liquid would pour in, until he would either have to risk his anger spilling over the brim or find a bigger cup. For the very first time there is no cup big enough. He cannot look at this objectively and set it aside in a box in his mind with the knowledge that it will one day be repaid with due justice. It's too raw, too close too his heart, too much after how much Kurloz Makara has already suffered trying to atone for a future he'll never act out. He understands now, he thinks, why his Disciple held herself like she'd been burned through to the core by his own execution. He understands that grief and rage that fate could be so cruel to someone who just wanted to do good.

He feels as though he might vibrate out of his skin. There's a fire at the back of his throat and behind his eyes. He can feel that he's on the verge of something and the boiling energy inside of him hasn't decided what yet. He paces around his room once, twice, and then finally leaves it and directs his bare feet toward the elevator and District 4. He needs someone to tell him not to do something he'll regret because right now he doesn't trust himself to have anything resembling good judgement.

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Roland's own feet are directing him out of District four. He'd taken the time for a question of Sigma, the man who might've been a friend, might be a traitor, but he hasn't waited for an answer. That answer - and his own feelings on the whole matter - can lie a while. He has waited, and knowing what it is to wait does not make the process any easier. The waiting before a battle, and sometimes after one, the full knowledge that everything may crash down around you and that you may do nothing but wait to see what falls, he has known it well. He knows it now. These last few days have been long ones.

And now they know. He knows, too, what must be done, at least in the short term. He does not pause to be relieved that the waiting is over, because there are things that must be done.

Comforting a grieving lover, that much he's done too, or tried. Alain had always been better, back in those brief days in the war when there had still been lovers to grieve them, and Roland feels the pull of homesickness now as he strides through the communal rooms of this floor. Surprising, since he knows well how those days had ended, but he'd been so confident back then that he'd be able to leave the jobs like that to the friends more suited to them. That there'd always be Alain's empathy to fill in the places Roland's mind and heart might lack. The thought's dismissed nearly as soon as he thinks it. The boy Alain is now, somewhere in the Capitol, may be more suited to this sort of comfort than the boy Roland was then, but the man Roland is now will not leave this task to anyone else. Not this.

His feet take him out of District four's suites, and into the small room in front of the elevator. Signless is his priority right now, and he will not pause for anything else.

Edited (first paragraph needed clarity on a couple things) 2015-04-23 01:14 (UTC)

The elevator doors slide open to reveal the very troll Roland was on his way to comfort. He doesn't much look like himself: his hands are balled into fists, his lips form a thin dark line around fangs bared more than usual, and his eyes have gone dark. The sclera, usually a muted yellow color, has shifted until its tone almost matches the bright red of his iris. It gives his eyes a wild, burning look that doesn't lessen when he sees Roland in front of him.

Instead he steps out of the elevator, closes the distances between them, and presses his face hard into Roland's chest. The whole of him shakes. His breathing is slow, measured, but very ragged.

Even now, after feeling that body warm against his most every night they can manage to sleep in the same place, there are rare moments when there is nothing familiar about this man at all. Moments when Roland's instincts remind him that, familiar as he may be, Signless is purely alien in a way no human would ever seem.

This, for an instant, is one of those. His instincts send his muscles tense, send his mind searching for the old knowledge he has on most any creature of the Prim - strengths, weaknesses. How to control it. Kill it. But then that creature is coming toward Roland, and his old instinct is not so strong as to overcome the habit this man has built in him. That habit has him keeping his arms slightly spread, muscles still, and then his lover is shaking against him and Roland lets out a breath, long and slow, and curls his arms around, presses his hands to the muscles of Signless' back.

"Signless." This isn't the time to ask, Roland knows that. Not about the eyes, or what a troll palemate should do in this situation, or anything else. But he is uniquely aware just now that whatever is happening inside Signless, body and mind, may well be very different from whatever a human would be experiencing, and Roland needs to know. "What do you need?" He looks down at the top of that familiar, messy head of hair as he asks it, voice not at all cold, but very brief and to the point.

He doesn't answer immediately, which is just one more check mark on the list of things that are off about this whole situation. It's like dragging himself up from beneath a great depth of water, a feeling he's had before but never to this extent. His eyes are tight shut but one of his ears flicks to show recognition, acknowledgement. He tries to speak but the tight heat in his throat burns up any words before they make it out. After a few dry false starts he finally manages to force out:

"Not here."

Even a hallway is too public. More than that, he can't answer the question yet. He wants to scream himself hoarse with the injustice of it all but he's frightened that he'll say something to incriminate himself. As it stands he can get away with pretending he didn't see this coming, that he's horrified because it was unexpected and brutal (and that isn't a lie).

As patiently as Roland waits for an answer, the core of him going more tight and tense with every failed effort Signless makes to speak, once the words have gotten out he moves quickly. Nowhere is private, not even those blind spots in the Capitol's eternal, unrelenting view, because even if Signless were in a state to make it to one of those they can't do more than walk slowly through one without looking far more suspicious than they can afford to right now.

Roland turns, careful not to move in a way that separates Signless from him until he realizes they'll have to. "Step back. Keep hold on me. Walk to my room."

Again, Roland's speech is short and to the point. No questions, nor suggestions, because at times like this people - human people, at least - need none of that. Things are worse than he'd expected, that is obvious, but before he tries to find out just how much worse they need to make it to what passes for a private space. He waits to see whether Signless can break from Roland and walk himself, ready to keep an arm around Signless' back, and ready to pick Signless up and carry him if he isn't. Best not to force Signless to pull away from him in a state like this, but they do need to get there somehow. "You can make it, just that far."

Just as Signless predicted, Roland knows exactly how to react. The simple orders give him something to do beyond let his rage build and the lack of fuss or demands for an explanation ensure that he isn't agitated further. The last thing he needs is to also be angry at one of his few lifelines in this situation.

"Mmh." It's as close to a noise of agreement as he feels like making.

Right then. Step back. He does and then starts walking, letting his body follow the now-familiar path to Roland's room almost by itself. His motions are heavy and jerky but not in the kind of way that indicates any physical ill. His wounds are most definitely all mental.

The familiar room at least is a small comfort. A space that is in some way his feels far less like a makeshift cell, even if that's still what it is. He takes a few steps inside and then pauses, too agitated to consider sitting down when he knows he'd just get up again but unsure of what to do otherwise.

If anyone sees them walk through the suites they know better than to ask, and luckily the two of them make it into relative privacy without incident. Roland closes the door behind Signless and, though he may have known how to react earlier, if he stopped to think about what to do now he'd be lost. Roland knows that. So he doesn't hesitate in front of the door, doesn't dawdle and wonder what to do next. He does what feels right, which is to move in close and closer, and reach out, and put a hand on each of Signless' shoulders. "We're alone," he says, leaning in. "Or as close as we'll get. Do what you need to."

Do what you need to. What you need -- what you --

He's looking forward but not at anything. There's so much pain and anger built up in inside him and vying to get out that he almost doesn't know where to start. It's as though everything he wants to say is trying to burst out all at once, getting stuck in his throat like a crowd of people all trying to get through the same door at the same time. He raises and lowers his hands a few times and then finally sets them on Roland's chest, flat for just a moment before they inevitably curl into fists again.

Do what you need--

His mouth opens and a wail wrenches itself from him. He raises one of those fists like he's going to bring it down against Roland's shoulder and then whirls instead, wrenching away from him to pace the room. He can't say what he really wants to, can't rail against the system that has made this a reality, so instead an increasingly vehement list of curses pours from his mouth. He keeps pacing until his eyes fall on the lamp on Roland's bedside table. He grabs it.

"FUCK THIS!" His voice breaks as he throws it as hard as he can against the ground. It makes a satisfying sound as it shatters. He looks at the pieces for a long moment and then sinks to his knees with a whump.

"They say," he says, and his voice is deathly quiet, "that when I was executed all of my love and patience turned to hatred. They say I died cursing the universe so loudly that my rage echoed for aeons after my death. I never believed -- I never thought something could make me that angry."

Roland holds himself still, even when it looks as if Signless is going to strike him - he's aware of his own instincts now, his own reactions, and can hold them back just enough if that's how it's going to be - but Signless doesn't. So Roland listens and watches, and when Signless finishes he waits a moment more, making sure nothing else is forthcoming. Then he walks forward, falls heavily onto his knees next to Signless.

"There are more breakables in the kitchen," he points out, in the mild, reasonable tones of someone making the observation that it looks like it's going to rain soon. He's beginning to understand now what form this particular grief is taking, and feels all the more respect for this man beside him as he comes to understand it - he understands, too, how dangerous this is. Signless had enough self control to come here rather than anywhere else, to even now continue to moderate his words, but if Roland handles this badly-

Well, he's ready to find out just how strong a troll is in comparison to a human, if it comes to that. In the mean time: "I'll bring them, if you like."

It won't help. Not deep down. But all he's aiming at is to take the edge off, enough for Signless to do what he can on his own. Not that Roland does plan on leaving Signless alone - not even if he happened to ask.

Roland sits beside Signless, sounding companionable, looking solemn. Waits.

He leans sideways, his shoulder bumping against Roland's with perhaps more force than he means it to. He wants to be held. He wants to punch a hole through the wall. He wants to scream obscenities until his throat hurts. He wants to cry. He doesn't know what he wants, really.

"No -- no. I shouldn't. It would make more work for the avoxes." He says the word like it burns his tongue; he always has to some degree but now it's unmistakeable.

Avoxes and everything about them have always horrified him in the way slavery and the casual abuse of lowbloods always horrified him on Alternia. They put him in mind of nothing so much as those psionics with the exceptionally bad luck to be talented enough to be hooked into ships, their mobility and free will and sense of self repressed until they are not people so much as objects. Avoxes are the same, empty vessels who exist only to fulfill a purpose.

For all intents and purposes the Initiate is dead. His body remains but his self is gone, and Signless knows that unlike last time it will be permanent. The last time was a warning meant to wear off after his death in the arena. Now the Capitol has made good on that warning. He'll never hear Kurloz speak again, never hear him recite his scripture like he promised he would, but he'll have to watch him float ghost-like around the Tower with his eyes looking at nothing and his face bare.

He turns his face sideways, presses it into the crook of Roland's neck, and lets out a small sob.

Roland reacts immediately, sliding one arm around Signless' back, one over his front, and turning toward him. He presses his face against that thick dark hair, ignoring the blunt, rounded horn digging into his cheek. Familiar as Roland is with grief, he doesn't know which way this particular grief will turn - Signless has kept it from becoming dangerous once, heading here instead of making a public protest or, worse, trying to confront a gamemaker directly. But that's not really a guarantee he'll be able to do it again. This safer sadness is more what Roland was expecting than the startling, red-eyed rage with which Signless had first greeted him, and if he were thinking of such things Roland would find it impossible to figure which reaction he prefers.

"You did well coming to me, dear," Roland says in a quiet, steady voice, because comforting lies like everything is going to be okay may always be beyond him. "You did very well."

If Roland had tried to tell him that everything was going to be okay Signless might have actually hit him. He doesn't have time for empty words and he's glad Roland doesn't either, glad that out of all of the humans he could have fallen into a quadrant with he's managed to find one with some practicality.

He turns into the hug and slips his arms around Roland's shoulders, holding him like he's afraid he might disappear -- and who could blame him? This keeps happening. Everyone he's loved has been taken from him eventually in one way or another here.

"Thank you," he says, voice harsh and strained in the way voices often are when the speaker is trying to talk through tears. More than 'thank you for the comfort' he means 'thank you for still being here, for being alive and relatively safe'. He lets himself cry because it's easier than talking, because he knows Roland won't mind, not even when the red of his tears makes unsightly splotches on the fabric of his shirt.

"I couldn't be alone with that kind of anger," he says once the sobs have died off into quiet sniffles and hiccups. "I would have burnt myself up. I have that inside of me all the time, Roland, and I hold it back because there are still things in this world worth caring about and hoping for. That's why I needed you. I needed to be reminded of that."

Roland considers it, that anger. It isn't a foreign topic, generally speaking. That rage is what he'd shaped so carefully in Susannah and Eddie, what moves him through all the battles he's ever fought - or what used to, when those battles weren't arranged and recorded for an audience of greedy fools.

In any case, he knows that anger. More than knows it. But he's said before that Signless isn't a gunslinger, and knowing about the rage in him makes that no less true. So this new fact does not truly surprise Roland - it's interesting, though, and he takes a moment to consider it and file it away. Then his hand starts moving slowly and firmly up and down the line of Signless' back.

As Signless predicted, his tears have stained the starched white of Roland's shirt, but that is so low on Roland's list of priorities that he almost doesn't notice it. What he does notice is the color of those stains. A little unsettling, first seeing that, in the same way that seeing the alien red of Signless' eyes when he first arrived had been. But this, at least, is easily shaken off; if that weren't supposed to happen, Signless might have at least acted surprised.

Or perhaps not, considering. They both have a few other things to focus on.

In a gunslinger, that anger could have been molded, used. It wouldn't need to be held back so much as controlled. Signless is not a gunslinger. Besides that, he is an adult in ways that Roland does not recall Eddie and Susannah ever quite being. He is old enough to know himself, to be set in some of his ways. Signless knows what he needs. If he needs to hold his anger back, if he needs to be reminded - "Then that's what I'll do. And if you need to spend some of that anger on me I'll do that, too."

What might have been a smile flashes at the corner of his lips for just a moment before it disappears. He doesn't have the heart in him to smile right now but the gratitude is there all the same. He also doesn't really have it in him to wipe away the smudges of tears on his face -- and that would require letting go of Roland, something he really does not want to do right now.

He knows what will happen if he doesn't hold back his rage. He's seen pictures, read transcripts, been told by trolls who watched it happen. There is a difference between holding his anger inside of him as a reminder and letting it consume him and turn him into a bitter and hateful person. It isn't a matter of strength of character, he doesn't think. It isn't that he's too weak. It's that the kind of strength he might gain from letting his anger out isn't the kind he wants to wield. That, probably, is why he'll never be a gunslinger -- why he'd never want to be.

"I couldn't. It isn't your fault." If he couldn't even raise a hand against Roland earlier then he certainly won't be able to now that he's a little more himself. Maybe if there was even a little bit of a black tinge to their relationship, but there isn't.

"Crying helped, anyway. We'll find ways to burn off the rest of it."

Roland nods, thinks briefly that when people mention burning off emotions what they usually mean is fucking.

He looks Signless over a moment. Decides against the suggestion.

"Come on," he murmurs instead, adjusting his hold around the tired, grieving man pressed against him and moving to stand. "If you're done with anger for a while, let's get you up off this floor. See if you can take a rest." Roland's hand moves over the curls on the back of Signless' head, and he pulls him a little closer. Rest won't truly help, because nothing is truly going to help. But Signless needs it, and Roland will be here when he wakes.

That's probably a good decision, because that's not at all the kind of burning Signless means. Not that he wouldn't appreciate the physical and emotional closeness sex can entail, just... not now.

Human beds aren't exactly like cocoons, but being curled up beneath the covers simulates that feeling of comfort well enough. Signless slips in and out of wakefulness. There's too much going on in his head for him to really sleep but at least he can fitfully doze. It's better than nothing.

Psii couldn't shake the dregs of horror at Initiate's Avoxing. Even if the lies were true, even if what was said cast a shadow on the doubt Psii had already harbored, even if Psii had been hilariously duped by the clown against all evidence, he still stuck by his belief that no one deserved to be Avoxed. He'd even told the clown to his face he believed that, even while saying he didn't trust him. Psii had been through the silence and shackles of slavery, and he couldn't wish it on anyone. Funny, that those who handed out that punishment had never suffered it themselves.

Worst of all, it had been sanctioned by someone Initiate regarded as a custodial figure, or so he'd said over s'mores and a campfire with Sam. Psii didn't understand why humans didn't just let lusii raise their young. There might be violence or abandonment, sure, but none of this premeditated betrayal bullshit.

Like the time Initiate left his last spoken words on the network, Psii sprung into action. He hoped he wouldn't find Signless with mood-ring troll eyes filled with red. He hoped he wouldn't find Signless dead in a ditch or Avoxed on TV because he lashed out at Peacekeepers. The best Psii could hope for was to find Signless broken and catatonic. Psii never hoped for much his entire life.

It took him a while to track him down, but he knew most if not all of his haunts. He knew Roland was in District 4, and there was no curfew to stop Psii from asking around and following leads to his respiteblock. Worst came to worst, he might simply get the wrong door. He announced his presence with his characteristic double knock.

"Roland," he called through the door, trying to keep his voice steady. Someone had to be the stable one in this quagmire of utter shit. "Have you theen SS?"

Even if one of them was gone, he could make some progress. If it was just Roland here, he'd warn him about troll emotional explosions and help him track down Signless. If it was just Signless, he'd make do until the human pail/palemate showed.

At the moment Signless was curled up on the bed. 'Broken and catatonic' wasn't quite it, but he did feel wrung out and listless. The circles under his eyes were incredibly dark and there were dried red tear tracks on his face. The anger that had been burning in him earlier had had time to cool and was now this incredibly heavy dark thing settled in his chest.

His only response to the double knock and the accompanying voice was to briefly open his eyes and then close them again. He wasn't the one the question was for. He was perfectly free to just stay still and quiet and let Roland handle this.

Roland, already looking down at Signless, is in a good position to notice that near-complete lack of reaction. It puts him in mind of nothing so much as himself all those years ago, during the journey away from Hambry. It puts him in mind both of the boy he was then, unable to stop thinking of her yet unable to think on anything at all, and the man he is now, who still finds it difficult sometimes to even think her name. But the only thing left of her then had been memories. What's left of Initiate - well. They'll deal with that the next time Signless sees him.

Roland runs his left hand again over Signless' hair, considering. After Susan, Roland'd had his own two dear friends to sit with him and speak, even if he hadn't spoken back. And though he doesn't know the Psiionic well, he knows the two are close, and have been for a long time.

He stands, moves away from Signless and toward the door, and opens it. He steps back, jerks his head toward the bed. Or, more accurately, toward the figure huddled upon it.

"How are you?" Roland's tone is businesslike, his expression likewise. He asks not out of concern but practicality; he's got no idea how the Psiionic might feel about Initiate or about the situation surrounding him, but he does know it will do Signless no good if Psiionic enters and promptly, as the saying goes, starts to 'losing his shit'. Welcome to the ride, Psiionic, you must be this emotionally stable to enter.

Roland's tone was clipped enough to err on the practical side of things, rather than prying into Psii's feelings. It comforted Psii, put him in mind of stability. The more stability nowadays, the better.

"Alive. Intact. More than a troll like me can ever athk for." A troll like him. Slave, rebel, slave again, rebel again, his life seemed to follow a pattern. The ends of his sentences lifted with his brows ever so slightly, as if to ask Roland if he expected there to be more of an answer, more exposition on how exactly Psii felt. Psii had been conditioned since wigglerhood to hide his feelings unless pressed.

It occured to Psii that he never asked Roland about his past. Most of Psii's scars were from slavery and survival. Where did Roland get his? Was he intimately familiar with how regimes punished their slaves, or how hard it was to free the mind of shackles long after the physical ones were gone? He hoped so, so he could help Signless come to grips with what happened to his moirail; and he hoped not, because no one should have to know that fear and pain. Psii had no experience being an Avox like Initiate was now, but he did know the prisons of the oppressed mind, and the particular way every troll's dark subconscious teetered and reared its ugly head in hard times. Signless was always the more well-adjusted one, the wise preacher, the one Psii looked to for emotional guidance. Psii felt cast adrift without that.

He approached and sat slowly on the bed. He twitched the blankets tighter around Signless. A makeshift cocoon was better than no cocoon. Psii lay his head on Signless's shoulder.

"I wath worried you wouldn't be here. I needed to make thure you weren't doing anything thtupid," he intoned gently, voice low with emotion. "You don't have to talk, but I will."

By Signless not sounding any sort of greeting when he knocked, Psii knew he was wiped out. Even without Initiate being Avoxed, it had been a trying few days.

He followed their conversation as if from a very great distance removed from it, taking it in but unable to react. When Psii sat near him one of his ears twitched, and he managed the smallest, barest hints of a smile at 'doing anything stupid'. The other troll knew him so well.

Still he didn't speak, but he did give a small nod. Enough to communicate that yes, he'd like to be talked to. He'd even take listening to Roland and Psii talk to each other: the comforting lull of familiar voices would be far better than quiet.

Out of the corner of his eye, Roland just catches the Psiionic laying his head down over Signless. Little more, though - to all appearances Roland has just become fairly interested in the contents of his own closet. This outfit here, haven't worn that in a while. Gods, no wonder, look at that gaudy, tasteless embroidery.

After a moment, though, once the Psiionic's words end and silence has had a couple moments to seep back in and start filling up the room, he glances back. It isn't as if Psiionic doesn't know full well that Roland's going to be a party to whatever private moment he manages to snatch here, and he may need to ask.

"I haven't tried to stir him from this. If he were a human, I wouldn't." That may not technically be a question, but the way Roland studies the Psiionic's face as he says it might well make it seem like one. He runs a hand over his jaw. "I hope you know a little about the working of your people's bodies because you're the closest thing I have to an expert."

In the silence Roland allowed to pervade the block, it occurred to Psii that the human wasn't familiar with the accidental intimacy a troll's quadrants could brush. Some trolls were more flagrant than others, going so far as to pail one in front of another, or have a feelings jam in the middle of a crowded room. When in doubt, Psii erred on the side of privacy with someone serious. At the very least, he was a dear friend. Psii figured a bit of reclining would be alright in present company, but apparently humans (or Roland in particular?) operated on a different wavelength.

"I can't thay I'm an exthpert, or Kankri would call me out on my bullshit. But pileth, talking, and cranial mathageth are generally pretty good."

He eyed the broken lamp on the floor. Violent reactions were par the course for trolls, and Psii didn't question its presence.

"Not much of a pile you've got there, Roland. Thad, really. Why don't I clean that up while you make a proper one out of thothe godawful clotheth you're thtaring at? They can be good for thomething at leatht. Here, on the human bed. Jutht thmother Kankri with them, it'th fine. He doethn't have to move for a while, it'th not like we're being attacked by muthclebeathtth...."

Taking Signless's barely-there smile as a cue, Psii attempted to take the edge off all this with mild snarking. As an expert on being paranoid all the time, Psii knew they didn't have to be wary now. If the Capitol wanted them dead or interrogated, they would have done it already. He gave Signless's shoulder a small nip and his hand a squeeze before slowly extricating himself from the bed. His plan was to attack the broken lamp with a trash bag and some wet paper towels. He was pretty good at meticulously cleaning up others' messes, no doubt due to his past. Deft fingers picked and blotted the broken shards into a neat pile before rolling the entire affair in towels and bagging it. He could borrow a broom from an Avox (dear God) later today.

If Roland had known his attempt to give the two at least the illusion of a private moment together would be taken as prudishness, he might have stared a little. As it is, he only assumes the Psiionic has had the moment of intimacy that he needed, and is now ready to move along from there. In the interests of that, Roland obediently removes said godawful outfit from its hanger and then stands in front of the bed, just holding it. Signless has mentioned piles a few times, but never really- Well. 'Pile' sounds self explanatory enough, doesn't it? He takes that outfit and a couple others, and starts very carefully tucking them around Signless' edges, ending up with something more like a small, fabric wall around the troll than anything messy enough to be pile-like.

He gets caught up in staring for a second before he catches himself, because Signless - never Kankri to him, until and unless Roland is specifically told to think of him so - looks small, lying still and quiet like that. Small in an odd, unfamiliar way. Roland looks into those red eyes for a second more, then straightens to watch Psiionic's attention to the ceramic and glass spread through the carpet. "You'd better tell me about piles." He pauses and, when he continues, Roland's voice is just a little bit drier. "This has very little to do with pebbles, doesn't it?"

Roland was kidding himself if he thought that Psii was done fussing or that he should maintain his distance during said fussing. Signless had told Psii that he was both pale and red for a human, and Signless was beyond quadrants enough that Psii didn't question it. In the interest of healing Signless, Psii was slowly tossing any uncertainties he might have had about sharing a pile with a human out the window. If it came to an actual feelings jam, Psii would cross that rickety bridge if he came to it. Psii moved the trash bag out of the way against a wall, turned, and promptly dragged a hand down his face.

"....Ok, Human Roland. Ok. You've got the pathifying part down great, but you really need to work on your piling technique. Jutht thaying." Sometimes Psii tacked on the 'human' prefix with people he didn't know well, or when he just wanted to be trite. Psii grabbed as many clothes he could carry, looking like a sequined swamp monster on two storky legs as he hefted them over to the bed. He dropped them unceremoniously on Signless.

"Uthually he'd be on top, but thith ith fine. A pile ith jutht about the moth comforting plathe a troll can be. Have a theat."

Psii found a perch himself and plucked a few scarves away from Signless's face. He brushed a few mussed curls back. As he foretold, he lay cool hands against his head and began to knead in circles with his thumbs. He didn't know to do this for him from personal experience, but he'd seen Disciple at it. He hoped it would help.

"The minute you leave thith block," he murmured, "everyone ith going to hound you about Initiate. There'th only tho long you can thay 'no comment.' We need to draft a few rethpontheth. Roland and I could probably do that, but eventually we need your input, thinthe you are the one who'th going to be thaying thethe thingth." He was always looking to the future, visions or no.

"Or, we could thwitch it up and have you talk about your feelingth. We're already getting biznathty in a pile anyway. Your choithe."

Psii personally thought Signless should do both. It was just a matter of when.

Right now he didn't much feel like doing either, but the gentle pressure at the bases of his horns and pressing down on him from the pile of clothes was helping. There was and always would be something incredibly comforting about being curled up in a pile, and this pile in particular had the added benefit of mimicking a cocoon. Signless felt, on the whole, very safe.

He still didn't want to talk. Talking meant dredging himself up from inside his own mind, meant acknowledging what had happened in a way that required him to keep more or less objective about it. He didn't know if he could do that just yet; he was no stranger to needing to separate his own feelings from the face he needed to present to the Capitol, but this was so new and so raw... how could he discuss it in terms of strategy? In terms of marketing?

"Do I have to pick one?" His voice was quiet and a little hoarse.

Roland walks around to the other side of the bed and perches next to the pile, since he'd been invited to. He wants to watch now rather than interfere, and does so; the Psiionic's position, his posture and hands. What he sees is filed into a box in his mind, labeled something like the signless and other trolls, care of, and placed where he'll be able to find it easily, later. Sooner or later, he's going to need to.

It should not be a surprise to hear that voice, because Roland does not doubt that Signless' dear friend knows what he is doing, here. It is, though. Roland's expression sharpens, and he leans closer without quite realizing he has done it. "Aye," he murmurs, and though he's decided not to interfere, he's sure it won't hurt to brush the backs of his fingers along Signless' jaw, to move them slowly up the side of his face.

"Have to do it tomorrow at the latest. One day of rest after that, but we'll be able to hold them off no longer. The attention span of these people is short, but fierce. Best start now, so we'll have the time to go through it all slow."

"Your, ah, feeling jams," he adds, to the Psiionic. "If that's what we're about to do here. I don't know if Signless and I have done one quite this way. What do I need to know?"

"Eventually I'd like you to do both. Thoon. The order ith up to you." Roland seemed to be thinking the same thing. Better to build a shield for Signless to use now rather than wait for him to be distressed again. "He'th right."

Psii glanced at Roland and explained haltingly,

"You thit, in a pile if pothible, and share feelingth. What you fear motht, what'th on your mind, a particular problem.... You've probably done it before."

In theory, it was simple. But for trolls, emotions were very complicated once it got down to actually expressing them. Psii avoided both their eyes. His hands faltered, then picked up massaging again. He'd knead Signless's head until his hands fell off if he needed to. Otherwise, Psii didn't know what the fuck he was doing. That little hoarse voice didn't sound like Signless at all. It upset Psii's center of balance and clawed at his blood pusher more painfully than he expected. His voice tumbled over itself a little.

"I don't know that we need to, but SS definitely doeth. I.... I'm not good at it. Altho I'm not pale for you. Thorry, I'm thure you're a real diamond thtud, but I'd only feel comfortable talking about thordid pathtth and deep fearth with thith athhole here." He gave Signless's hair a small pat. "Honethtly you should be relieved I wouldn't share much if we did do it."

With great effort, Signless slipped one of his hands out from under the blankets and pile of clothes to brush against Psii's fingers, then curled it against his own cheek.

Truth be told, the idea of talking about his feelings scared him. He was afraid that if he tried to put them into words he'd just fall back into that hopeless, burning-hot pit of rage and despair. He couldn't. Not right now. Which left...

"I don't know that there's much strategy to discuss. What choice do I have? I am a Mentor, I can't afford for my public opinion to be anything other than complete support of the Capitol." The idea of having to say, on-record, for everyone to see, that what happened to his moirail was justified... it's disgusting, but it's the only option open to him.

"He was dangerous to himself, to his fellow tributes, to the Capitol as a whole. He had to be punished and rendered docile for the good of everyone. If I'm angry, it's only because I was foolish enough to trust him."

Roland watches Psii through his explanation, nods, looks briefly unimpressed at being called a 'diamond stud', but then his attention's taken back up by Signless. Signless and his complete failure to acknowledge the Psiionic's other suggestion in any way.

"There are less direct ways to say it," is all he says, because it isn't time to push Signless to speak of anything else just yet. "But you're not wrong, it does all amount to the same thing. And the past you and the Psiionic have in your world will work against you here, and maybe him too. You'll want to address that. Perhaps you two should do most of Signless' interviews together. Tell them you want stability, and that Panem provides that. Tell them you've learned from your own mistakes, even if others haven't."

He pauses briefly to consider. "Perhaps mention your luck that so much exposure to the Initiate's Touch - his 'powers', I mean - has given you such resistance to the effect. True things." And with that last bit Roland focuses on the Psiionic's face, eyebrows raised. Signless' phrasing a moment ago went dangerously close to saying he doesn't support the Capitol, and if he can alert Signless' friend to be watchful for any more of that they'll all be better off. And, hopefully, warn him off pointing out how the 'telepathic resistance' idea is more bullshit than truth.

"The best way to start may be to practice. Psiionic, you and I as... Reporters? Isn't that what they call themselves? And we'll correct Signless when he trips up. Unless that's better saved for later. It's necessary, but it won't be easy."

Psii briefly gripped Signless's fingers. He was half disappointed Signless was going the route of avoiding his own feelings, but he could hardly blame him.

"We know what you will talk about. But you have to come up with the right wordth and be able to pull them out quick. Like Roland thaid, they're thirclefowl jutht waiting for you to croak."

He lay down on the pile, wincing in sympathy as he buried half his face in Signless's hair. He didn't want to needle the somber troll, but he wanted even less to leave him to his own devices. His life could depend on the words he said. Psii would be a callous asshole if it meant saving his friend's life. Psii found his hand again and squeezed it tight under one of the garishly sequined shirts. His grip was at odds with his calm, sterile words.

"Trollth rethithting pthychic intruthion at varying levelth ith actually a thing," he told Roland. "For exthample, shit only workth on me half the time." He shrugged, speaking to Signless again,

"I gueth if you're wondering how you'll look nextht to me.... I'm thtill angry. I'll show it. Rebelth doing thtupid thingth and getting culled or worthe...." Maybe he could make it sound like he thought rebellion in general was always stupid, instead of expressing his simmering anger at the Capitol. Now more than ever, no matter how little self-preservation he had, he was aware that his own words might cast Signless in a bad light. Roland's nonverbal communication also made Psii nervous. Maybe they could avoid seditious talk by blustering right on to interview rehearsal.

"I don't think I can fully thupport avoxthing on record. Here in thith hivethtem, I've already thaid it maketh me uncomfortable becauthe of the helmthtroll thing. I've alwayth been truthful in interviewth." He neglected to mention that he never told the whole truth. Mostly he just spouted about how much he liked the food. "But who am I to dethide what ith and ithn't a jutht punishment? Only the Capitol dethideth that." The words felt foreign as they left his mouth, even if they were half true. The Capitol did have the power.

"Tho, ath a Reaporter—reporter, whatever—I have to athk you, 'Do you feel that Initiate'th punishment fit hith crime? What about you and the lithping nerd, have you both learned from your mithtaketh after being given thith thecond chanthe?'"

Later, when he felt less like he'd been hit by a truck, Signless would be grateful to them for forcing him to confront this sooner rather than later. He knew he had to and knew it was the best course of action but that still didn't make it easy to do.

He knew it would look bad if he thought too long on his answer, both in an interview and to anyone who might happen to be watching them now. At least two years in the Capitol had left him with an excellent idea of what the Capitol would want to hear and a well-developed ability to bullshit. His voice didn't waver as he spoke, though it had a certain flat quality to it that he'd need to either edit later. The Capitol liked emotion better, and he certainly had emotion to pull out on display here, he just had to do it in such a way that it could be attributed to the wrong source.

"Of course his punishment is fitting. It's never been a secret that those who commit acts of treason will be punished with the greatest severity possible. If anything I'm surprised someone as dangerous as him wasn't executed outright-- but this punishment might go further to discourage anyone else from following in his footsteps."

The rebellion effort needed to lay low and regroup now. The thought that someone migh get frustrated with this setback and do something stupid worried him; they needed every single person they could get whole and healthy and not a brainwashed slave.

"And I would say I have certainly learned my lesson. I've long since accepted that my actions on Alternia were stupid and selfish, and I've already stated that I'm incredibly grateful for the chance to lead a different life here with the knowledge I need in order to not repeat those mistakes. Panem is my home. I wouldn't want it to become more like Alternia."

It skated a thin line between lying and truth by omission, but all of it would technically pass a fact-check if someone decided to run one. So far so good.

Roland's first urge is, of course, to touch Signless somehow, comfort him. But if he's going to act cold, if Signless is going to have to be cold to answer, then this is no time for that. He thinks a second, sitting up straight with his gaze distant, trying to think what one of these Capitolites might say.

"You say so," he murmurs, looking down at the two of them, "but you spent quite a lot of time with the Initiate. Would you really know if he'd planted rebellious ideas in your head?" He pauses, maybe giving Signless enough time to think the question is really going to be that easy, maybe just hesitating. There's certainly no hesitation in his voice when he continues. "More than that, you loved him. You really expect us to think you wouldn't follow in his footsteps, simply because of that?"

"And you," Roland continues, looking at the half of the Psiionic's face he can see against the curling tangle of Signless' hair. "Initiate loved you very dearly once, doubtless still does. And your connection to the Signless is without question. Who better for the Initiate to make into his two most secret lieutenants?"

Soft laughter burbled up from Psii's throat, the sort of dark chuckling he couldn't help when something awful struck him as particularly funny. He hadn't expected Reporter Roland to ask him that. In a way, Psii and Initiate shared the same horrible sense of humor, even if Initiate had a track record of being far nicer than when he first arrived in Panem. Signless could and should answer his half of the question, but Psii saw no reason why he should wait for that when his laughter would need to be explained. They were pretending to be on live TV, after all.

The clown. Psii had voiced plenty of opinions on record about the clown's past infatuation with his future self. He was on his merry way to repeating them, citing his obvious loathing recorded onscreen, and even thinking of the time he'd demanded Initiate stop hiding things from him and receiving no satisfactory answer.

But even as he spoke, Psii had to wonder what made him laugh in the first place. The clown was neutralized, no longer the threat Psii had feared him to be at the start. But somewhere along the line, perhaps in the dingy alley while throwing spades at Signless between plotting rebellion, he'd filed him as an ally. Initiate straddled the no-man's land between Psii's hatred of clowns and his compassion for people in general. Initiate was someone he'd kill under the right circumstances, and someone he trusted just enough not to kill him under the right circumstances. Hilarious. Psii had wanted nothing to do with him. Now, any chance of--no, he didn't dare use the word reconciliation--truce was lost.

"You can't thay he wouldn't laugh, too, if he could. Clownth love thith kind of awful ironic painful bullshit. Future me wath hith diamond in the patht, and current me ithn't. I've alwayth thaid the Helmsman ith the latht thing I want to be. On Alternia, trollth like him picked on trollth like me. I thtill have the thcarth. You schlubth actually think I would want to take hith orderth? Fucking hilariouth. In the Tribute hivethtem, I mothtly yelled or hithed at the clown when I couldn't avoid hith creepy gaze altogether. Thothe of you without actheth to thecret camerath, jutht look up footage of me and him in the latht arena. I look like I want to puke the whole time. Now.... I thtill do. I feel that way whenever I look at an Avox."

All true if taken at face value. Psii didn't have to dissemble there. Pretending he was being interviewed by glittery simpletons helped him keep a casual, crass tone, at odds with the grim way he clutched Signless's hand under the pile of sequins. He couldn't hold his hand forever, metaphorically, so he finally let it go. But Signless's distress upset Psii more than he wanted to let on. He didn't want to leave the comfort of the pile just yet.

"SS, unfortunately, didn't have the benefit of my traumatic clown-related hindthight. But I wath blind, too. I thought the wortht I had to fear wath a friend in a bad relationship. I wath wrong. I'm thorry, Panem. I should have been more watchful."

It was an evil question, pointed and painful, and that meant it was the sort he was likely to be asked before all others. Signless knew how the Capitol media operated, how they chose their words to create the most possible drama and heartache. He'd have to congratulate Roland on doing such a good acting job later.

His hand curled tight when Psii let it go, needing to grip something and having nothing. After a moment he made his fingers relax. Showing weakness was not something he'd be able to afford in front of real cameras and real reporters. He had to seem sure.

"I should have been more watchful as well. I let my love for him and my happiness at seeing our relationship mended blind me to what he really was. But I would not have followed him once his true intentions became clear, and I have no love for him now. My entire life I've fought for peace and freedom. I couldn't love someone whose true ideals were so opposed to that."

"You act if he needed your permission to turn you to his cause." Roland stares at the far wall, his frown small and gaze unfocused, then instructs himself to look back again toward them. "We all know how unscrupulous he was, before the Capitol put a stop to his evil."

He doesn't quite sigh then but takes a moment to let out a breath, quiet but almost enough to break the act. It isn't so much the difficulty in saying these things as it is the feeling of saying them to Signless now, come so recently into his grief. Watching him lie there still only inches away, stretched out so close to his friend. Feels dirty, like something Roland will need to go into the washroom and scrub out of himself afterward. Well. Won't finish these damned questions if he doesn't actually ask them.

"Psiionic, your powers may give you some way to resist, but the Signless has none of that. And he's got none of your history with the Initiate that allows every part of you to hate him-" He stops himself with a little shake of his head. Trolls and their romance. The Capitol's news-men probably will phrase things that way, but there's no need to confuse matters with terms like that just yet. Hm. There's some way to say it that doesn't touch on quadrants. "-to dismiss him, surely some part of the Signless would want to be under Initiate's control. How do you expect the good, Capitol-fearing people of Panem to trust the two of you again?"

"The Initiate doethn't have a hold on our brainth anymore. Hith thponge hath been thoroughly thcrambled and fried. I plathe full faith in the Capitol'th ability to avoxth Avoxtheth."

It was like a round dance or a stable loop of code, Psii realized. Use a certain language, and always circle back to praising the Capitol. Tedious, painful, but Psii had grown up doing tedious and painful things for hours. He even lets Roland's slip about hate by. No need to fan that shipping flame.

"He can't feathibly bother uth again. Wortht cometh to wortht, if SS hath any problemth, I'll be around to thet hith memory thtraight. I've been doing that anyway, alwayth watching out for threatth like that clown. I'm thurprithed he didn't cull me for being tho thuthpithiouth of him."

He had been surprised when these allegations about Initiate surfaced and he was still alive. That, more than anything, confirmed to Psii that Initiate hadn't planned to usurp as the Grand Highblood. Psii, ever suspicious, would have been the first to go.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

you're caught in my head like a thorn on a vine [closed]

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We can probably call this done!

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