The Signless (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
69problems) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thecapitol2015-04-22 06:47 pm
69problems) wrote in thecapitol2015-04-22 06:47 pm
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.
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.
no subject
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."
no subject
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."
no subject
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?"
no subject
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.